… Physics kills people:

Damage = ½mv²*Bc

And we all know that the laws of physics are no respecter of persons!

Like so many other Wars on Some Institutional Evil declared in the past by governments that may have meant well… Mexico’ War on Drugs seems to be taking a turn for the worse.

According to this article from a series by the LA Times (not my normal choice of reading materials, mind you) it seems that the wealth and power that these thugs and smugglers trafficking narcotics and humans (illegal immigrants, or the more clinical-sounding and multi-culturally sensitive “undocumented workers”) over our very porous borders.

There are two things I would like to point out to our high-minded liberal friends who are so quick to point out that we are to blame - with such worrisome sounding statistics that upwards of 90% of weapons used by Mexican drug cartels are imported (illegally, of course) from the US.

First, while we do share some measure of guilt for consuming the nefarious products (primarily heroin and marijuana, among other drugs), and while regrettably, there is a trade amongst gun-runners for weapons.

A caveat: I’d venture to say that this is largely in the form of handguns, as automatic and semi-automatic US-manufactured long weapons such as Colt AR-15s and heavier caliber police weapons that fire .308 munitions tend to be much more expensive, and require harder to source ammunition.

.308 and 30.06 rifle rounds, and .50cal for sniper-grade weapons tend to be much more expensive and less ubiquitous than .762mm ammo, and the plentitude of cheaper, mass produced rifles that use it such as Chinese knock-offs of Russian AK-47 and SKS rifles which can be had at a 10th of the cost of a US military grade weapon, and certainly cheaper than high-end H&K or Steyr assault rifles.

Now this is not to say that these knock-off weapons aren’t sourced in the USA, but rather, to imply that these weapons present such a danger (concerning what could rightfully be considered an insurgency or an insurrection in another sovereign nation) that liberals would choose to enact even *more* Orwellian “gun control” laws is a fallacy. That is, law-abiding citizens should not be impeded from the liberty to buy, sell, and trade firearms and munitions nor should their Constitutional rights per the 2nd Amendment as recently supported by the DC v. Heller case be abridged because some criminals choose to traffic in these weapons.

The criminals themselves, should be caught, disarmed, and upon conviction in a court with due process be incarcerated - and hopefully, should we ever gain the courage to do so, enact laws that do not PUNISH the law-abiding gun-owners of our nation, but rather, to enact such severe punishments to include the death penalty for any such crime aggravated by use of deadly force (particularly in the case where the guilty has already built up a record of gun crimes or violent crime).

The other item that bears mentioning is that the nature of the Mexican drug war - concerning which there is (very much belated) discussion of deploying National Guard or possibly even active-duty regular Army on the border to combat incursions by Mexican (drug/human traffickers) into US territory.

Gentle readers, when we get to that point - when the regular police forces and the Mexican Army itself are taking casualties (over 7,500) in ONE year that make the body count for our invasion and occupation of Iraq for past eight years pale by comparison… when the weapons of choice for these drug warlords and kingpins are grenade launchers and anti-tank missiles… we have gone well beyond some gang of gun-runners selling cheap SKS-clones out of the back of a Ford Van, and have graduated to what are in fact REAL assault weapons: weapons meant for armed forces to actually engage in heavy assaults against fortified emplacements - in this case, police stations and paramilitary units.

What should our next steps be? Why not recall the military home to its true and originally constituted purpose - to suppress insurrection and repel foreign invasion: in this case, the invasion of Mexican traffickers across our southern borders - and sealing that long border with whatever means - even if it means regular Army patrols with helicopters and UAV assets with “shoot-first, ask later” rules of engagement.

I think the narco-gangs might think twice about bringing their war across our borders if it meant certain death, or at least a substantial barrier to their continued operational fitness.

The other step might be unthinkable, to a generation reared under the watchful eye of Mrs. Nancy Regan’s admonitions to “Say No to Drugs”, the motherly face of yet another failing War Against Some Social Evil (the War on Drugs).

Anything that involves the appointment of a titular “Czar” (in this case, the so-called “drug czar”) is an indicator of a bad thing - where the last real Imperial Czar - translatable from the Latin”Caesar” were the Romanovs of Russia, who along with most of his family had a most unhappy meeting with a few Bolshevik bullets more than 90 years ago. I’d say that would show that use of a title to be quite inauspicious.

That is all to say, that perhaps we should consider repealing the prohibition styled laws against certain “recreational” narcotics, while at the same time putting together a highly regulated and tax-revenue generating stream much like is already in place for the sale of alcohol, as well as making health insurance options reward those individuals who choose the better option of keeping their bodies away from the will abuse of destructive substances.

Such a *gasp* libertarian alternative just might staunch the flow of weapons, drugs, illegal migrants, and bloodshed on both sides of the border.

Thoughts from beyond the grave of H.L. Mencken on Obama:

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

(Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.L._Mencken

Update - 21 May 2009: I did some further reading up on this H.L. Mencken, and interestingly enough, he was something of a forerunner of today’s modern liberal secular-humanist elitist (and very likely a godless atheist) who had a bit of an affinity for the authoritarian model of Otto von Bismarck’s Prussia, or any of the other less than libertarian governments of Old Europe.

Not a bit at all unlike many of the far-left of the Democratic Party, whose somewhat ironic name betrays its true bent toward European style Democratic Socialism, where the central government and its many agencies have attempted - with much success - to supplant the Creator (His Name is Jesus) as the granter of rights and liberties, while very successfully relinquishing the electorate and the common citizen of his role as both guarantor and holder of those same liberties and rights.

Hat tip to Beyond Caffeine, whose owner gave me the original kick in the memory to this clever little line command:

cat /etc/lsb-release

Which returns:

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=8.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=hardy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 8.04.2"


While most users could simply go to the menus in the window manager (in GNOME: System » About Ubuntu ) to achieve more or less the same result, this is handy for people who need to remote in/SSH to an Ubuntu machine, or have the server based installation of Ubuntu.

And yes, I probably should do a dist-upgrade to Jaunty Jackalope.. but I’m kinda lazy about that sort of thing, especially when my current version (Hardy Heron) is a LTS (Long Term Support).

Ah, there we go.

BIGOT!

A word with stopping power nearly equivalent to a .45 ACP round discharged under 10 meters from its intended target.

A word with greater chilling effect on discourse than a body stuffed into a meat locker.

It seems these days that anyone who is opposed to Same Sex Marriage (SSM) is ipso facto, a bigot.

We know this, because no less a legend and intellectual titan (as anointed by the fleck-spittled, foamy-mouthed liberal media shill Keith Olbermann) than Perez Hilton, the fleck-spittled, foamy-mouthed celebrity gossip monger says so, as he delivers his resounding and devastatingly arrayed arguments, of course, filled with bone-crushing logic and a nearly inescapable singularity of reason against some beauty queen who *dared* foul the air with her noxious bleating that … *le gasp* she believed marriage was something to be held between a man and a woman only!

Guess who else thinks that way - or at the very least, has publicly stated that they believe as much:

(1) President Barack Hussein Obama
(2) God (through numerous utterances he gave His servants in both the Old and New Testaments)

I do not see how Mr. Hilton (a.k.a. Mr. Lavandeira) can take issue with some rural young woman from the back of beyond when she declares her opinion of SSM, and not deliver with equal time, or energy, his disapproval of Mr. Obama’s lack of adherence to The Agenda™.

Of course, were we to ask Mr. Lavandeira of his opinion of God, I’m reasonably certain that he would not speak to highly of his Creator, even on a good day.

But rather than spending vital bandwidth picking on poor Mr. Lavandeira’s own bigotry, let us review what the word “Bigot” actually means - aside from its Agenda™-enforced code meaning for “anyone opposed to SSM”, from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) :

Bigot
A. (n.)
1. A religious hypocrite; (also) a superstitious adherent of religion. Obs.

2. a. A person considered to adhere unreasonably or obstinately to a particular religious belief, practice, etc.

–b. In extended use: a fanatical adherent or believer; a person characterized by obstinate, intolerant, or strongly partisan beliefs.

B. adj. (attrib.). Of or characteristic of a bigot; bigoted. Also fig. Now rare.

And for good measure, an adjective form, bigoted, also from the OED:

1. Obstinately or unreasonably attached to a faction, cause, belief, etc.
2. Characterized by bigotry; obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, faction, etc.; intolerant towards others, their beliefs, practices, etc.

Two conditions seem to exist to qualify a person for bigotry - obstinacy and unreasonableness.

Therefore, in order for one to be bigoted, s/he must exhibit a certain unreasonable amount of stubbornness in their adherence to their particular belief, for example:

“The Earth is flat”. This has been proven wrong, both mathematically and empirically (ships disappearing over horizons, and later through spaceflight). For anyone to strongly hold on to this belief today in spite of evidence to the contrary, would be doing so in a manner that could be correctly characterized as “bigoted”.

“God’s Word is Truth”. This is not directly provable or disprovable, but through faith, I accept it as gospel (and it is, in John 17:17). I certainly would meet the obstinacy test, but I do not think this would make me a bigot in the most strict sense of my belief being unreasonable, since a large minority of people also believe in God’s Word and also believe it is truth. However, when “reason” no longer accepts God’s Word, then I’d gladly be bigoted for the TRUTH of God’s Words over the shameful and sick thoughts of the minds of men (including my own fleshly reasoning) for it is written:

“And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”

(1 Cor. 3:20, KJV)

“Race A is inherently better than Race B“. This would be unreasonable, since God’s Word declares that “All are sinners and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and really, as far as God is concerned, He sees us as all of one race - the Seed of Adam - but yet of one of two fathers - either Father God (through faith by grace) or of Satan (our default, depraved, sin-stained state).

“(SSM) is a right, and equal to (heterosexual) Marriage” This is very much debatable, and can really only be seen for what it is - an antic of those promoting the Agenda™ to “normalize” themselves as a very significant force in American society, when in fact they are but a very, very small minority (less than 3% of the population), not all of whom even desire to be married!

In fact, this is possibly an unreasonable statement, based upon the overwhelming preponderance of written history recording that (hetero-normative) marriage and families being the very glue of human society. That last great society that adopted The Agenda™ as a very good idea and was followed widely by all of its citizens were those of the Cities of the Plain - Sodom, Gomorrah, and a few other outlying towns that were utterly destroyed by God (they had many other issues going on than just their adherence to The Agenda™ - but one door tends to open the path to others, and there can be little doubt that given the nature of the activities that the men of Sodom wanted to embark upon with Lot’s guests, that it wasn’t a major factor in their downfall).

That said, while we may not see destruction in the same manner as the Cities of the Plain, we are dying a slow, agonizing cultural death of Western Judeo-Christian culture that started toward the post WW-1 epoch in Europe and is nearly completed, and has been doing quite a job on America over the past two generations.

Note that these definitions have nothing at all to do either with issues of race, or with sexuality (per se)… that is to say, speaking one’s belief that men should only marry women - is hardly indicative of a unreasonable attachment to that belief (when the breadth of human history and in fact, its very continued existence, declare that heterosexual marriage is the norm).

I fervently believe in the laws of gravity and thermodynamics; yet these laws are true regardless of whether or not I choose to believe in them. This would not make me a bigot based upon that.

Equally unchanging and true regardless of our willingness to believe or even acknowledge it, is the Word of God, which was made flesh in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ.

I also fervently believe in God and the infallibility of His Eternal Word; in today’s anti-Christian climate, that is increasingly seen as unreasonable, and therefore likely makes me a bigot (based on the above OED definitions).

Yet, I have to wonder - does Mr. Lavandeira (Perez Hilton) also stand guilty of bigotry - for his unreasonable and obstinate adherence to his belief that anyone who opposes The Agenda™ or its current flagship issue of SSM is a bigot of the worst order, matching the bigotry of a David Duke, or that supposedly of a younger Robert Byrd before he ascended Capitol Hill so long ago as a Kleagle of the KKK?

Perhaps it is time for Christians (who are currently the biggest targets for being smeared with the giant word-brush of doom for “bigotedness”) to consider how we might reclaim the word “bigot” for ourselves in a positive way (principally through unwavering adherence and obedience to God’s Word, per the OED definition) much as homosexualists have reclaimed certain slurs for themselves.