politics

Chris Knight's avatar

While driving through Virginia over the weekend there was a church sign that caught my eye.  It was much like any other found outside places of worship throughout the Bible Belt of America: usually the name of the church, some other info (website address, etc.) and then lots of space for some timely text or witty remark.  I think one of my all-time favorites has to be “SOMEONE CALL 911, THIS CHURCH IS ON FIRE!”  And I’d be horribly negligent as a blogger if I didn’t note one nearby congregation’s humorous reaction to all the precipitation we’ve had lately: “WHOEVER IS PRAYING FOR RAIN: PLEASE STOP”.

When you think about it, church signs were Twitter before we ever had the Internet.  And even today they convey their messages much better… and with far fewer than 140 characters.

But here’s what was emblazoned on this particular church’s outdoor sign:

A COUNTRY
...
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Chris Knight's avatar

Longtime readers of this blog know that I don’t play the partisan game.  And I haven’t bought into the “conservative/liberal” mentality for a very long time.  Regardless of affiliation, we should expect all of our elected officials to put the Constitution and liberty of the American people ahead of their political agendas.

Richard Burr, North Carolina, Senate, Senator, ObamaCare
Senator Richard Burr
(North Carolina): Part
of the problem in D.C.

That being said, North Carolina’s Senator Richard Burr is now shown be a bitter disappointment.  Burr is choosing capitulation over leadership, and what is easy over what is right.

From the article at The Hill…

Blocking a government funding bill over ObamaCare is “the dumbest
idea I’ve ever heard,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Thursday.

Burr
argued stopping ObamaCare’s funding is not going to be achievable as
long as President Obama is in the White House, and that Republicans
risked taking the blame if they

...
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Chris Knight's avatar

The employer mandate component of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act health-care scheme has been delayed from implementation until 2015.  That’s after the 2014 elections, mind you.  Not well before.

Can Obama do that?  I mean, I thought the Affordable Care Act was codified law.  Seems kinda illegal to invalidate the most sweeping legislation in living memory like that, even if it’s only part of it.

I have an idea: let ObamaCare go into full-blown effect now.  Let Obama and those who pushed for the Affordable Care Act see what happens.  They wanted us to have this, we should give them what they want.

(Don’t think for a moment that this isn’t about politics.  Gotta wonder if the ACA will keep getting punted down the field for the next several elections to come.)

‘Course, Obama himself, members of Congress and other government officials have exempted themselves from the Affordable ...

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Chris Knight's avatar
Liberator, Defense Distributed, 3D printing, gun, firearms, Second Amendment, First Amendment
The Liberator: Coming soon to
a desktop near you!

Defense Distributed has made a lot of headlines lately about the Liberator: a firearm which is completely fabricated by “3D printing”, apart from the firing pin.  I think the success of this gun already is that it’s got politicians like Charles Schumer and Steve Israel all steamed-up about it.  Schumer wants 3D printed guns to be outlawed completely.

The thing is, politicos like Schumer can’t figure out how to pull that off.  3D printing will soon be a household implement and if it can be drawn up on a computer, anyone will be able to produce a fully-functioning model right on their desktop.  The computer doesn’t care if it’s a replacement part for a kitchen appliance or an action figure or a real working handgun.  The barn door has been thrown wide open and there’s no getting that horse back ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I have had an idea, which may or may not address a myriad of problems affecting these United States…

We should begin letting all natural-born Americans be citizens.  But only at age
18 can they become full citizens, with all the rights and privileges that comes with such citizenship.


However, for that to happen a person must be made to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he or she is up to handling the responsibilities that comes with being a fully-functioning member of a democratically-elected republic.

Each individual would have to demonstrate
basic knowledge of the Constitution, some simple geography (i.e. be able
to find the United States in a world map) and basic English.  Perhaps along with some understanding of American history, economics and accounting.  Let the examinations be done in the randomly-applied style of the SAT, the GRE and similar tests.  It shouldn’t be too hard but neither ...

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Chris Knight's avatar
SDI, Strategic Defense Initiative, Star Wars, missiles, nuclear weapons, antiballistic

It was thirty years ago this week that President Ronald Reagan gave a historic speech proposing, for the first time, a space-based anti-ballistic missile system for the United States.  The plan, once developed, would utilize ground and space-based weaponry to blast apart incoming nuclear missiles.  The basic premise was an array of missile-launching satellites around the Earth.  A far more radical design called for the deployment of platforms in orbit: either carrying anti-missile lasers or particle beams, or as part of an adaptive-optics system which would focus a surface-generated laser onto a moving target anywhere around the world (see illustration).

The official name for the concept was Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.  But for reasons apparent to everyone it was quickly labeled “Star Wars” by the mainstream press and the name stuck.

SDI gained notoriety overnight, as much from many people in the United States as from the government ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

One of the front-page stories of today’s edition of the (Greensboro, North Carolina) News & Record is about DC Comics delaying publication of science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card’s story for the upcoming first issue of DC Comics’ Adventures of Superman anthology.  Chris Sprouse, the artist assigned to illustrate the story, is refusing to work on grounds that the “controversy” about Card’s publicly-stated beliefs that homosexuality is wrong.  Especially his opposition to “gay marriage” during the lead-up to last year’s amendment to North Carolina’s constitution affirming that legal marriage is between one man and one woman.

You won’t find it in the story posted on the News & Record‘s website, but the article’s synopsis in the print edition reads thusly: “An uproar over author Orson Scott Card’s homophobic views leads illustrator to withdraw.”

“Homophobic”  As in, literally, “Orson Scott Card is in fear of homosexuals”.  The implication being that ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

The apparently big story right now is about the estimated fewer than 1,000 who marched in Washington D.C. today against the Second Amendment. I understand that this has made all of the major evening new broadcasts: CBS, NBC, CNN etc.

To the very best of my understanding, there was NO such coverage at all of yesterday’s March for Life, which many have calculated drew more than 500,000 to the Mall to protest abortion -the premeditated murder of unborn children – on the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Now, applying some logic here, you would think that a story regarding half a million people would dwarf that of an event which drew, at most, several hundred.

But I suppose when it comes to stories and their coverage from big media, some of them just don’t fit the expected narrative…

...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I did not watch President Obama’s inauguration today. There is nothing particularly interesting about a leader with no real vision. Sadly that’s a trait that has been shared by every president since Reagan. But I digress…

It does interest me this afternoon however that President Obama continued the tradition established by former president George W. Bush of having a “free speech zone” marked off for the event…

Freedom Plaza is the site of one of the only authorized demonstration zones, where a strip of the plaza is designated a free speech zone.

The “free speech zones” were a routine and chronic practice of George W. Bush. Nobody who protested his policies was allowed anywhere close to him when he was president and out in public. There were many instances when protestors were limited to an area nearly a mile away from Bush.

The “free speech zones” were wrong then. They ...

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