OMG - the sky is falling!!!

 

Sighhhh!!!  America, must you go out of your way to make yourself a public embarrassment?  As someone who has spent a considerable time living outside the U.S.A., I have grown weary of what America says about itself and not what people outside the US say about them.  We are our worst PR enemies.  I speak another language well enough that I am often mistaken for a European (Hollander, Dane, etc) but NOT as an American.  You would be surprised what folks at a beer table say about "Yanks" when they believe there are no "Yanks" at the table.  I can only surmise from these past experiences what is being spoken about concerning America's latest obsession with "hallowed" grounds.  Let me first note that the entire issue on the "hallowed" ground surrounding ground zero is a New York City issue.  Five blocks away from ground zero there is an already existing Islamic Mosque.  It has been there for over fifty years.  No one has asked them to move from this location since 9/11 and no one has accused the congregation of being wild eyed terrorist.  But of course that Mosque is FIVE blocks away and not THREE blocks away.  Now the Islamic believers want to use a building that they own located three blocks away from ground zero as an Islamic Cultural Center.  It will not be a Mosque but more like a recreation site for believers in Islam.  The fact that it is two blocks closer (and shielded from ground zero by an entire city block of high rise buildings) has somehow created a mysterious power to corrupt and somehow threaten the people of New York City.  Incidentally the power of Islam to impart supernatural powers on its followers was the only legitimate reason that the Guantanamo prisoners could not be tried in New York City. Obviously these powers would have given them the opportunity to overpower 8,000 New York police officers, at least that many Federal guards and 12 million citizens of New York and escape into the darkness to reign terror on all of America.  Them Islamic folks are one powerful group of wizards.  So now we are all upset about people in the US exercising their right of free worship and the unobstructed free practice of their religion not for legal reasons but rather because it is "insensitive."  Of course, American "true blooded" Yanks who carry insulting banners at the funerals of fallen soldiers is OK and we cannot prohibit their right to commit this rather "insensitive" act.  How many streets, buildings, homes etc. have good old white America built on native American "hallowed" grounds?  Did we ask them first?  Does the "Trail of Tears" ring a bell about what happened when native Americans had the audacity to complain about the abuse of their ancestral and "hallowed" grounds?  Chicago, Los Angelas, Tucson, Miami, are just a few of the US major cities built on grounds once held entirely by proud native American entities.  If American wants to honor "hallowed" grounds, might I suggest Selma, Alabama and its civil rights abuses or all of Texas and it's wanton and illegal confiscation of land belonging to another sovereign entity.  Incidentally, being "hallowed" ground in New York City has not slowed the promulgation of new peep-shows and porn shops surrounding ground zero but that is OK.  Obviously, nothing more American than a peep-show.  Yes America, we all know how much you honor our "hallowed" grounds if only you could just once actually read the US Constitution you might be surprised at just how legal these Muslims are acting on this issue.  

Stupid Outdated Constitution

I think it is time someone speaks up in favor of the US Constitution and not as a critic.  When the NRA was finally able to get the courage to actually bring the matter of gun ownership to the attention of the Supreme Court, I waited quietly for their decision.  In all of the huffing and puffing that both sides have demonstrated on the issue, this was the FIRST time that the NRA decided to test their stand in court.  I was not surprised that this Court voted in their favor since it is top loaded with some rather extreme activist Judges as evidenced by other decisions oozing out of their minds.  In the end, they decided that our fore fathers meant for all Americans to be armed to the teeth as a matter of self-protection.  In reading the various documents of that era, it was pretty obvious that arming themselves as a "well regulated militia" was designed to provide a ready reserve military arm to counter threats from the government and from foreign intrigues.  As much as I disagreed with this decision, I respected the Court's authority in this matter and began my own style of peaceful protest.  I do not own a firearm so the forearm companies will starve if they are depending on me.  I will not remain in a retail outlet if someone enters bearing an openly displayed weapon and I tell management why I am leaving.  If their business is more preferential than mine, so be it.  If I see someone with an openly displayed weapon enter a Federal facility (Federal Courthouse, Federal lands, etc.), I report the violation immediately to the police.  I am a real nuisance but all I am doing is obeying the law and assuring that the law gets obeyed by others.  You see, I really appreciate the presence of the US Constitution and it's legal arbiter, the Supreme Court.  Keeping this personal position in mind, I find our lawmaker's latest assault on this wonderful document to be not only abhorrent but bordering on treason since they are attacking the basis for which this nation was formed.  I am speaking of the assault on the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution which was first proposed on 13 June 1866 in the ashes of the Civil War.  It was ratified by 2/3^rd of our Congress two years later on 9 July 1868.  This was not, therefore, rush to judgment but the result of due deliberation.  Our forefathers knew what the impact of this law would be and voted it into law.  At the time there was great concern that we would turn into a mongrel nation and that a flood of Chinese workers would overwhelm our electorate.  In actuality, the thrust of the law was to provide citizenship privileges to slaves recently released slaves from the former Confederate States by noting simply that "All persons born or naturalized in  the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State in which they reside."  Pretty simple language and the various predictions of overwhelmed electorates never came about.  It has been the law of the land for almost 150 years and has served us well.  As noted in the above quote from the Amendment, diplomats would not have their children covered since they are not "subject to the jurisdictions" of the United States.  Now several Congressmen from several States want us to change the 14^th Amendment to preclude children of undocumented aliens from being considered as US citizens.  Unless your white hood has baked your mind in the hot sun, it is obvious who this change movement is meant to target – our Latino/a brothers and sisters from the South.  12,000,000 illegals will marry and have kids and these kids will then become a voting bloc.  If you have spent a career opposing the presence of these people in a nice white America, such a voting bloc could present a real job security threat.  Do you think "illegal" Canadians worry about their kids being accepted as Americans?  I doubt it.  This effort to push for changes in the 14^th Amendment did not occur until we started seeing more and more Hispanic surnames holding office in the various States throughout this country.  OMG, if we don't do something quick, democracy will enable almost anyone to hold public office and majority groups will now be able to set policy.  We simply cannot have such a situation in a democracy so let's alter our perception of what constitutes a democracy.  We should be very proud of these lawmakers since they have taken the stand that they and only they really know what was going through our fore fathers's minds. We probably need to begin looking at freedoms of religion next since those evil Moslems want to build a Mosque on private lands in New York "near" ground zero.  After that let's check out freedoms of the press, speech and protections of our persons places or things – you can never be too careful you know.             

Doncha just luv it??!!

I am dropping this entire article into my blog noting that it relieves me immensely to realize that I am not the only person who believes America has gone a little short on common sense and integrity.  I am writing this even now as the news is reporting some Baptist minister is sponsoring a Burn a Quran Day at his "church".  I can only shake my head and recall that my brother was murdered in Ireland in 1988 for being a Catholic.  I hope (and excuse me for saying this) that this "ministers" church is scheduled to be on the evening news as the typical seasonal report noting that his building in town was the only building wiped out in a small tornado that didn't kill or hurt anyone...you know the story...we see it all the time...

In my own State the Attorney General. Mr. Cuccinelli, is suing the US Government to oppose the recent health care reform.  Again, a separate State deciding on which "laws of the land" they will chose to obey.  Break out the grey uniforms and we might want to think about reinforcing Ft. Sumpter. 

...and yes I am worried about this country...

The state of America? Hysteria

• Tim Rutten

Hysterical moral panic seems an apt description for our fevered political condition

ByTim Rutten

July 31, 2010

la-oe-0731-rutten-20100731

If you reengage the American media after a month out of the country, as I've done this week, it's hard not to conclude that hysteria is now the dominant characteristic of our politics and civic conversation.

How else to explain the fact that questions like secession and nullification — issues that were resolved in blood by the Civil War more than a century ago — have come alive again and are routinely tossed around, not just by fringe figures but by Republican officeholders and candidates?

For example, Zach Wamp, a Tennessee congressman who opposes the recently enacted healthcare reforms and is running for governor, told an interviewer that he hopes "the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government." Meanwhile, GOP candidates for statewide office in various Midwestern and Southern states are promoting the notion that states ought not to enforce any federal law not approved by at least two-thirds of their state legislators. It's as if John C. Calhoun suddenly had risen from the grave and had a talk show.

In Nevada, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate has discussed abolishing Social Security and darkly mused over whether Washington's alleged overreaching may require a "2nd Amendment solution." That means guns, a prospect that could be facilitated in one state after another by an outfit called Appleseed, which holds weekend seminars whose participants are given a mix of Minuteman pseudo-history and instruction on marksmanship.

Meanwhile, attempts to repeal sections of the Constitution continue apace. The so-called 10thers, who want to roll back 100 years of federal law and regulation in order to assert rights under the 10th Amendment, are almost unremarkably ubiquitous in the GOP. Candidates across the country pining for "tea party" support have endorsed repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would end popular election of U.S. Senators and return their selection to state legislatures, a step that theoretically would "restore states' rights."

The most popular such movement involves abolishing or gutting the 10th Amendment as a way to deny American citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Even the ostensibly moderate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has signed on to that one, while Rep. Louie Gohmert (R- Texas) speculates that such children actually are terrorist moles planted here to grow up as U.S. citizens as part of a long-range plot.

Nothing quite tops the anti-Muslim hysteria, which has led people to organize opposition to the construction of new mosques in places from Lower Manhattan to Temecula. One candidate for statewide office in Tennessee — somebody should examine their water supply — argues that the 1st Amendment does not cover Muslims.

Some inclined toward therapeutic explanations of history might attribute all this to a kind of collective post-traumatic stress syndrome engendered by the lingering, still-unresolved aftermath of the horrific events of 9/11. Others might point to the dislocating effect of electing an African American president to govern a society in which strong currents of racial anxiety still eddy beneath the surface of everyday life. Perhaps both forces act in unseen concert.

Back in the early 1970s — an era whose tumult we yet may come to regard as benign — social scientists here and in Britain coined the term "moral panic" to describe what can happen when groups of people are seized by an exaggerated fear that other people or communal forces threaten their values or way of life. The scholars described those who promoted the panic's spread as "moral entrepreneurs" — a term that takes on a deep resonance when you consider the commentators and politicians who have attached themselves, and their interests, to the "tea party" and its attendant movements.

In the midst of moral panic, inchoate indignation stands in for reason; accusation and denunciation supplant dialogue and argument; history and facts are rendered malleable, merely adjuncts of the moral entrepreneur's — or should we say provocateur's — rhetorical will. As we now also see, a self-interested mass media with an economic stake in the theatricality of raised and angry voices can transmit moral panic like a pathogen.

Looking around the United States in the summer of 2010, hysterical moral panic seems an apt description of our fevered political condition.

timothy.rutten@latimes.com