The Righrt Lane 1.21.13

The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Is "Liberal" a Mental Illness?  watch here

~~~~~~~

Sen. Chuck Schumer Says the NRA Is an Extreme ‘Fringe Group’ by  Erica Ritz

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sat down with HuffPost Live Friday, where he made a noteworthy statement about the rapidly-growing National Rifle Association.  Responding to interviewer Alicia Menendez’s question about whether Schumer’s colleagues are “willing to admit” that the NRA is a “fringe group,” the senator responded: “Well they sure are a fringe group, but whether enough of my colleagues are ready to admit that, I’m not sure.” He continued: “They are a very extreme group.  They don’t even represent average gun holders.” The left has to resort to demonizing to make progress and making something or someone the "boogeyman" is their favorite method.  Don't be fooled - no one is more mainstream in values than members of the NRA.

~~~~~~

Senate Democrats’ budget plan will reopen battle over taxes By Lori Montgomery

Senate Democrats plan to draft a budget blueprint that calls for significantly higher taxes on the wealthy, oil and gas companies and corporations doing business overseas, reopening a battle over taxes Republicans had hoped to lay to rest with the “fiscal cliff.” For nearly four years, Senate leaders have ducked their legal duty to craft a comprehensive budget framework. Now, however, Democrats see the budget process as “a great opportunity” to pursue additional tax increases — and to create a fast-track process to push them through the Senate, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “There’s going to have to be some spending cuts, and those will be negotiated,” Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, said in an interview after the show. “But doing a budget is the best way for us to get revenues.” The announcement comes days after House Republicans offered to forgo a potentially damaging clash over the federal debt limit, saying they would vote this week to permit the government to continue borrowing through mid-April. In return, House leaders demanded that the Senate revive the traditional budget process, by which the two chambers adopt their own blueprints and work out differences in conference committee.  With the offer, the GOP backed off its hard-line stance that any increase in the debt limit be paired with spending cuts of equal size — “a major victory for the president,” Schumer said. But the “fiscal cliff” measure is projected to generate only about $600 billion over the next decade, well short of President Obama’s goal of $1.6 trillion. On Sunday, Schumer said Democrats plan to fight on. “We’ll have tax reform . . . but it’s going to include revenue,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity to get us some more revenue to help” replace the automatic spending cuts, which are scheduled to slice nearly $1 trillion out of agency budgets over the next decade.  A story about something that never changes its spots? Tax and Spend?

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

Jim Wallis, a Social Gospel Activist, Says It’s Time for More Gun Control. by Gary North

Jesus wants the U.S. government to ban guns except those owned by government-licensed hunters and guns carried by law-enforcement officers or the military. How do we know this? Because Jim Wallis says so. Who is Jim Wallis? He is a Left-wing Democrat. He has never been anything else. He has spent 40 years trying to persuade theologically conservative Protestants that Jesus taught a gospel that conforms to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda . . . only more so. He thinks it is time to go way beyond Johnson’s hesitant efforts. He campaigns incessantly for the welfare state. He says that Christianity teaches the welfare state. I have made it a sideline in my own ministry to refute him, point by point.  His main theological message is this: Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.

He also is a gun control advocate. This is consistent. He is very upset by the National Rifle Association. He writes the following:

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said this as his response to the massacre of children at Sandy Hook elementary in Newtown, Conn.: “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” That statement is at the heart of the problem of gun violence in America today — not just because it is factually flawed, which of course it is, but also because it is morally mistaken, theologically dangerous, and religiously repugnant.

Jesus said this:

“When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing,” they answered. He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: `And he was numbered with the transgressors’ ; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.” The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.” “That is enough,” he replied. (Luke 22:35-38, NIV)

But this carries no weight in Wallis’s circles. They cry: “Proof-texting! Proof-texting!” What is proof-texting? It is quoting Bible verses that are not compatible with theological liberalism, political liberalism, or gun control. “When we are bad or isolated or angry or furious or vengeful or politically agitated or confused or lost or deranged or unhinged — and we have the ability to get and use weapons only designed to kill large numbers of people — our society is in great danger.” Great danger? All 315 million Americans are in great danger? Day and night, night and day? From people with unnamed weapons of mass murder? Sorry, but I had not noticed. Sporadic acts of violence are common throughout history. What makes the United States uniquely vulnerable in 2013?  Notice, he says “we,” as in you and I. When “we have the ability to get and use weapons only designed to kill large numbers of people — our society is in great danger.” I ask: “What about them?” Gang members, maniacs, and rapists. He does not say. What are these weapons “only designed to kill large numbers of people”? He does not say. So, we are left to speculate. What about a government that has so much power that it can prohibit such weapons? Can it prohibit other weapons? He does not speculate. As we have just seen again, when such destructive weapons are allowed to be used out of powerful emotion without restraint or rules, that is bad.  He ignores the obvious: there are rules. There are laws against murder. In dangerous situations, we as parents cannot tell our children they are safe. We cannot, because they are not. We – you and I – cannot tell our children they are safe as long as such unnamed weapons are available to “human beings when they are acting badly.” They are also not safe from intruders, kidnappers, and a mentally deranged parent who uses a knife to kill his children. In short, Wallis is using a definition of safety that is ludicrous: safety from AK-47s or Kalishnokov’s or Uzis. If we could just prohibit private citizens from owning these, we could then tell our children they are safe. That is the inescapable implication of how he frames his argument. The ideology of gun control makes its adherents sound silly.  What about AK-47s and Kalishnikovs and Uzis? These weapons do exist. They can be purchased on any black market in the world. You only need money and connections. Gangs have both. How is gun control going to make our children safe — at long last! — by officially banning ownership of these weapons? There is another way to get safer. He does not mention it. Own guns and know how to use them. This is called self-defense. 

We can call the police, of course. How long until they arrive? Wallis skips over such matters. He says:

When we are good, we want to protect our children — not by having more guns than the bad people, but by making sure guns aren’t the first available thing to people when they’re being bad. Being good is protecting people and our children from guns that are outside of the control of rules, regulations, and protections for the rest of us.

He has shifted from calling for gun controls on undefined guns to all guns. But how, pray tell, can we “make sure guns aren’t first available to people when they are being bad”? The word “Prohibition” comes to mind. The phrase “war on drugs” also comes to mind.  Wallis admits that all men are good and bad. Then how, I wonder, can we keep weapons away from good people whenever they choose to become bad people? What law can provide this? What law-enforcement system can provide this? I call this Edward Hyde legislation. It requires every Dr. Jekyll to turn over his guns temporarily whenever he feels Edward Hyde coming on.

No law can do this. Wallis knows this. But, being a liberal Democrat, he thinks that it is better to disarm innocent people, even though evil people will be able to buy guns on the black market. “It’s the principle of the thing,” we are told. What principle? “To become 100% dependent on the State for our safety.” Here is their bumper sticker: Facing a Murderer? Call 911.

Finally, what will make a difference this time? Only two things I can think of. First, is if people of faith respond differently just because they are people of faith — that our faith overcomes our politics here, and that gun owners and gun advocates who are people of faith will act in this situation as people of faith, distinctively and differently. President Harding invented word to describe a form of public speaking: bloviate. He defined it as follows:

“the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing.” Alan Greenspan was a master of bloviation. Jim Wallis is not far behind.

He says: “Parents across the spectrum, gun owners or not, must demand a new national conversation on guns.” But we have had that conversation for decades. It boils down to this: (1) “The State alone has the right to own guns. Hand yours over.” (2) “An armed citizenry is the basis of liberty. Read the Second Amendment.”

He leaves us with this argument. He expects it to persuade defenders of the Second Amendment to turn over their guns to the government unless they are government-licensed hunters.

He said, I was putting my 9-year-old to bed a few nights ago. He said, “Dad I heard you talking on the phone about guns and the press conference you’re talking at tomorrow. “ “What do you think about it Jack? What do you think about it Jack?” I asked him. And here’s what Jack said:  “I think that they ought to let people who, like licensed hunters, have guns if they use them to hunt. And people who need guns — who need guns for their job like policemen and army. But I don’t think that we should just let anybody have any kind of gun and any kind of bullets that they want. That’s pretty crazy.”

Jesus said to buy a sword. The nine-year-old son of a Left-wing Democrat thinks otherwise. Take your pick.

~~~~~~

Gun Control for Dummies - It's Common Sense watch here

~~~~~~

'God' Mostly Missing in Obama's Inaugural Invocation--Delivered by Laywoman By Penny Starr

Instead of a prayer delivered by clergy, the Presidential Inaugural Committee invited a layperson to give the invocation on Monday for the second presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.

Mrs. Myrlie Evers-Williams, 79, a civil rights activist and widow of the slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, was tapped by the committee after Christian pastor Louie Giglio backed out because of a flap over a sermon in which he called homosexuality a sin. Mrs. Ever-Williams is the first layperson and the first woman to give the invocation since at least the 1937 invocation for FDR's second term, according to the data available at the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. "America, we are here -- our nation's Capitol," Evers-Willliams' invocation began. She asked for "blessings upon our leaders," but she did not invoke God in her opening. She spoke about mankind and womankind and the "promise of America." Her invocation at one point mentioned the "Almighty," but she left out "Under God" in quoting the Pledge of Allegiance. The only time she mentioned God was when she said, "We invoke the prayers of our grandmothers, who taught us to pray, 'God, make me a blessing.'"

Toward the end of her invocation, Evers-Williams invoked "Jesus' name and the name of all who are holy and right, we pray. Amen." When asked by Religion News Service in a Jan. 17 interview with Evers about her religious affiliation, Evers-Williams did not provide a definitive answer.

~~~~~~

First Term: Americans Collecting Disability Increased 1,385,418—Now 1 for Each 13 Full-Time Workers By Terence P. Jeffrey

As a result, there is now one person collecting disability in this county for every 13 people working full-time. Forty-two years ago, in December 1968, there were 51 people working full-time in this country for each person collecting disability.

~~~~~~

Schumer: Assault Weapon 'Would Not Help' Single Women Living Next to Crack House By Melanie Hunter

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, said a single woman living next to a crack house has the right to keep a gun in her house – she doesn’t need an assault weapon.  More Chuck Schumer brilliance on display.  He knows this because he has lived next to one and never needed an " assault weapon to defend himself!

~~~~~~

Infringed' Because '1st Amendment Is Infringed' By Jon Street

Andrea Mitchell, host of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” said that Second  Amendment rights "can be infringed because the First Amendment is infringed," adding that "every right also carries with it responsibility." During an interview with Gun Owners of America Communications Director Erich Pratt on Jan. 16, Mitchell asked Pratt whether he could support any of Obama’s proposed gun legislation.

"Are there things that [President Obama] proposed that you could support? Perhaps tightening the rules on background checks?” Mitchell asked. Pratt said, "Well, we don't think that any of the things that he's proposing would have stopped what happened in Connecticut, wouldn't have stopped [the gunman] from killing a victim, and stealing those firearms to commit such an atrocity.” “If there is an area of agreement that we have with the president, he quoted from the Declaration of Independence saying that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” said Pratt.

“That's a very important concept, inalienable rights,” he said,  “because whether it's the right to vote, the right to sit behind a microphone, or the right to choose how I'm going to protect myself, all those rights cannot be infringed as the Second Amendment says--" "Well, they can be infringed,” said Mitchell, “because the First Amendment is infringed. I have to obey all sorts of regulations from the FCC. There are things that we can't say in a crowded theater, so every right also carries with it responsibility." "What's interesting about that though is we don't gag people before they go into the theater. We punish the lawbreakers,” said Pratt.   “And in the same way, we would argue, punish those who abuse the right but don't gag law-abiding citizens before they exercise their right. …"