Great T-Shirt

I was picking up some supplies for our hamster at Petsmart the other day and I saw a lady with a t-shirt that read, "The 2nd Amendment is Homeland Security." I couldn't agree more. Let's quit giving away our right to protect and defend ourselves to the government. I'd rather live in an America where terrorists know the civilian population is armed and has no qualms about taking them out.

More Unnecessary Tasering

Okay, someone who is lying at the bottom of a bridge with a broken back and deliriously making threatening statements about police officers is an actual threat to the officers' safety how? There isn't a lot of information on the case but you can view the news report here. Some officers aren't waiting until their lives are actually in danger to use tasers. For them, mouthing off or non-compliance are a good enough excuses to incapacitate the citizens with whom they are interacting. In my opinion, this is completely un-American behavior. In fact,the whole "show your papers and comply immediately or I'll use potentially deadly force because I'm wearing a government badge" attitude which keeps popping up in police conduct sounds a lot more like a country under Nazi or communist rule than America where everyone is supposed to be both subject to the laws and protected by them. Police should not be able to abuse their power simply because they are public servants, if anything they should be held to the absolute strictest standards that the law dictates in regard to assault, battery, and manslaughter, lest the power they wield corrupt them and all sorts of heinous crimes be dismissed simply because they felt scared or threatened at the time they committed them.

From: townhall.com, 8/13/09

This blog was supposed to be all happy, fluffy, family life stuff but unfortunately I just don't feel like writing about new paint colors, fresh vegetables, and family visits when government officials and employees at every level seem to be able to abuse their power and trample the constitution and its amendments with impunity.

At least once a week, I read of a new incident where a police officer abused his power and either shot, tasered, or in some way assaulted an unarmed civilian who more often than not was minding his own business and had no intention of harming the officer. The latest example involves a police officer tasering a mom while her two kids watched from their mini-van.

Honestly, this makes my blood boil. If you try to resist a police officer's assault, even verbally, then you get charged with assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, etc. If you are armed and able to protect yourself then you're likely to wind up dead if not you just have to hunker down and take it, which is what you should do if you want to survive even if you can defend yourself. What in the world has happened to the police force, to make them so afraid of unarmed civilians that they think it necessary to taser, pepper spray, or assault unarmed people who question their charges or directives. I'm sure that not all officers are like this but if I can find one published example a week then there are way too many who are. Exactly how much are Americans going to take before we say enough is enough? A badge shouldn't grant someone immunity to do as they please.

It's time to question Anthropogenic Global Warming

Over 30,000 U.S. scientists do. If nothing else, do a little research on the medieval warm period It provides compelling evidence that the case for man induced global warming is greatly over-exaggerated.

In Honor of Independence Day

An excerpt from George Washington's farewell address, 1796.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.

The Unexpected

I started seeing a chiropractor in November because lugging a growing baby around was playing serious havoc with my back. There have been several occasions where I have been able to swallow normally after being adjusted. It lasts for about 24 hours. I am both surprised, happy, and just a more than a little frustrated because it doesn't always work, although my general health has improved dramatically. At this point neither the surgeon, the chiropractor, nor myself are exactly sure what the adjustments are effecting that allow my body to work properly. So we are looking at a Botox procedure instead of major surgery to allow my body some time to heal and see how much good the adjustments can do.

Reflections on Life

I'll be the first one to admit that I was angry, bitter, and snappy in the last post toward a group of people who had no malicious intents (toward me, anyway). It's not nice, pretty, or godly and I'm not proud of it but that's life. Life tends to be messy and imperfect (at least mine does). If yours isn't then by all means stop reading and stay far away because chances are it will be if you hang around me, or most normal people, for any length of time.

Blogging while angry probably isn't the best idea. All the same it fixed the absolutely frustrating "Isn't our life Wonderful" vibe that my blog projects. Well no, actually it isn't. By which I mean that while it can be wonderful it isn't perfect and I'm not always striving to be a better Mom and Wife. There are days when I'm mad, frustrated, and just want to give up. There are days when I could care less that the floor needs to be scrubbed and there are a pile of dishes in the sink, when my husband infuriates me, and my daughter doesn't seem so adorable. Most of the time I just write about the good days or the days that transcend the endless cycle or dirt and scrubbing bubbles. I'm just not sure how to show a more balanced view of life without whining and complaining or running other people down.