American Dishes

Sometimes even I have to come up for air from politics. So when I do, I eat up stuff that you can only get in America. Let's chow down on some Americana. Eat hearty!

American Dish #1:  Big Trucks and Old Cars

Most people would assume that I listen to NPR in my spare time, for the classical music. I think I come across as that music purist/snoot type. Well they would assume partly wrong:  only part of me is snooty. Around the time I started going to Tea Parties a few months back, I also started doing other red-blooded American things--like going to Yankee Lake Truck Night out near Youngstown, Ohio.

And I was one of those rowdy loud people on the bleachers watching the truck tug of war, just like these folks. Except I was eating an overpriced pulled pork sandwich. I was wearing cowboy boots, though.

At the truck night, I met and fell in love with him--my dream truck, I mean. It's below, a 1971 Ford F-250 XLT Ranger. If I can still afford a car in an economy after the sunset of the Bush tax cuts in January, I'd like to save up for this bad boy.

Over the past few months I also paid a visit to a Swap Meet out near Youngstown, Ohio, to ogle all the old cars and browse the rusty car parts and random array of antiques. I went with a guy I don't like anymore, but hey, thanks for the memories, right?

American Dish #2:  Country Music

As America as we know it teeters precariously towards communism, I want to cling to everything American. So now I've gone even further--I just today started listening to two local country music stations, so local it isn't even worth posting their names because you can't find them anywhere but here in mid-Ohio. It makes me feel pretty badass, driving along with my windows rolled down and country music blaring. I'm not a connoisseur--I don't have any favorites yet--I just generally enjoy the fat combo of fiddles, electric guitars, twangy vocals, and down-home poetry. A lot of the music makes me laugh, but some of the breakup songs are so poignant it's almost hard to listen. But I still listen. Ah, catharsis!

It's really fun for me, the lace-glove-wearing type, to get down and dirty as I chow down on some good ol' American customs.

The Contradiction of Liberal Compassion

"A lot of Republicans are all talk," said a good friend of mine the other day. "They blow off steam and never do anything. But a lot of my liberal friends are out there quietly helping the poor, volunteering helping the homeless, etc. They're not just talking; they're acting on what they believe."

At the time I couldn't really answer her. I was too stunned. Possibly I needed some sort of legal stimulant at the time, as well.

I've been thinking about this for the past couple days, poking around my brain for some answers. And then after I got some sleep yesterday night, stuff started happening. If you'd hooked up electrodes to my brain, they would have been flashing all over the place like one of those old computer keyboards from the original Star Trek.

I realized that if what she said is true, it's sad. I wish that more Republicans, or I prefer "conservatives" because Republican is a political party while conservative is a label for a set of ideals, wouldn't just get all fired up over talk radio (which I'm not saying is a bad thing, as long as the fire is used positively and constructively). Instead, I wish they would also put feet to their words and do something about their beliefs. Of course, how this looks will differ for every person, because every person is an individual with specific circumstances and talents to help others, blah blah blah. Okay, not "blah blah blah," because I think this statement isn't such a given after all. It's actually a conservative idea. At the core of liberalism is the idea that society will eventually progress to a kind of utopia in which everyone works together for the common good.

But on the other hand, I'm not about to preach that conservatives should use their beliefs to help others. I'm not about to preach that anyone should use their beliefs to help others. (God forbid, I hope I’m not about to preach anything.) I believe that the choice to help or not to help someone, or to volunteer or not to volunteer, is personal. The only thing I believe a person should have in this instance is the freedom to choose whether to volunteer or not, so they volunteer from a willing heart instead of a smoking gun behind their heads from a government-mandated community service hour requirement. (If you like more specifically Orwellian fun, check out this PDF file link.)

I believe though that her words touch on a deeper issue than just the Shakespeareanesque question of "to volunteer or not to volunteer." In other words, what she said implies that conservatives are not compassionate, or at least don't act very compassionate, and that liberals in fact are or act compassionate. But what makes conservatives not appear as compassionate as liberals? Is it just that conservatism attracts a bunch of people with fiery Pitta constitutions, and liberalism attracts happy, laid-back people with more Kapha constitutions? (Yes, I, a conservative, just alluded to the ancient Indian medicinal tradition of Ayurveda.) Or is it that conservatism as a set of ideas is actually intrinsically less compassionate than liberalism is? I'm not saying that she thinks this. I am saying, though, that her words logically raise this question.

At another blog, I recently read that "liberals have the moral high ground." Hmm. Really? Really?

To me, if you want to understand liberalism’s true nature, just look at an Oreo. On the outside of the Oreo are two chocolateish-flavored cookies, and on the inside is a sweet, creamy filling. The cookies and the filling are different in flavor, color, and texture.

The two outer cookies of the Oreo are how liberalism appears on the surface. On the surface, liberals seem pretty nice. They seem to stand for only nice things, like preserving the planet, saving cows and chickens, supporting people in whatever lifestyle they choose, no matter what that lifestyle might look like. They also seem to stand for caring for the poor and for the little, local guy--you know, the whole "buy local" idea, where you stop patronizing chain stores like Wal-Mart and McDonald's and buy from Goodwill and the local deli instead. (Hmm, isn't Goodwill a chain store too?)

I suppose you could scrape off the filling and eat only the outer cookies. Most times, though, when we eat an Oreo, we eat it all—especially the filling, because in my experience, people find the filling the best part of the Oreo. I know this because I’ve seen too many kids (and have been that kid) who tear the cookie apart and lick the filling first, because it tastes the best.

But the filling of the liberalism Oreo, unlike that of the literal Oreo, is thoroughly, utterly rotten. Not only is it immoral; it's also destructive to society. I’ll focus on the second part of my last statement.

Think about it for a minute. Just one. (Okay, more like five.) Yes, they say they want to preserve the planet. But by what means? By population control, or by limiting personal freedoms based on hoaxes such as global warming? Yes, they want to save cows and chickens, yet kill babies in the womb? (Come on, the whole it-isn't-really-a-baby-until-it's-born business is totally bunk now, thanks to the latest ultrasound technology.) Yes, they support people who choose all kinds of "alternative lifestyles," but these alternative lifestyles have historically been pretty destructive to societies. Think about it: Have you ever heard of a society composed mostly of gays and lesbians that has been prosperous, or that even survived for very long? Seriously, let me know if you have.

And is supporting a welfare state really caring for the poor? How did we care for the poor before the welfare state? Hmm--through local charities, the very places for which liberals insist we all volunteer. Besides, a welfare state keeps people locked into poverty, instead of freeing them from it. And this poverty-stricken sector makes a nice loyal voting bloc for welfare-staters come election time. Hmm...

Finally, what about the idea that liberals support the local guy, the little guy, the guy who doesn't use sweatshops to make his/her/their/our/my goods? Well, if you look at how things got to this point, you'll see that one of the reasons sweatshops and chain stores have become so popular is that businesspeople profit better from them than from local stores. Why? Because unions, manufacturing regulations, and environmental regulations all drive up wages, which forces businesspeople to outsource their jobs if they want to stay in business. Hey, wait--aren't those causes all liberal institutions? (I'm not saying we shouldn't have some basic regulations for safety's sake; I'm saying that we have too many, for the sake of bureaucratic control.)

So do liberals really have the moral or ethical high ground? Really?

What we have here isn’t a question of who has more compassion; it’s a question of whose beliefs produce more destructive results to humans. Put another way, the focus shouldn’t be on intentions, like compassion, but on beliefs and their results. What happens when somebody with good intentions practices bad ideas? Bad results.

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(For more on how unions and governmental regulations have forced American businesses to outsource jobs to other countries, see America for Sale: Fighting the New World Order, Surviving a Global Depression, and Preserving USA Sovereignty, by Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D.)

(Here’s a powerful example of voluntary American charity pre-welfare state, excerpted from New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America, by Burton Folsom, Jr.: “In the 1800s, voluntary organizations such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army were formed to give food, shelter, clothing, and spiritual help to individuals and groups that faced crises. Sometimes, of course, Congress was tempted to play politics with relief. In 1887, for example, several counties in Texas faced a long drought and some farmers lost their crops. Texas politicians helped cajole Congress into granting $10,000 worth of free seeds for these distressed farmers in Texas. After the bill passed the Senate and House, President Grover Cleveland vetoed it. ‘I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution,’ Cleveland said. Such aid would ‘destroy the partitions between proper subjects of Federal and local care and regulation.’ He added, ‘Federal aid, in such cases, encourages the expectations of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.’ As for Texas, Cleveland noted, ‘the friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune.’ Cleveland was prophetic. Voluntary contributions flowed into Texas from all over the nation, finally exceeding $100,000, more than ten times the amount Congress had tried to take from the taxpayers” (p. 77).)

The jury's still out, says Sowell

Okay, so maybe you don't really give a rat's rear end about whether gun control violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, or about what the Supreme Court ruled yesterday concerning guns. Maybe you insert your earbuds when people like me get fired up about how gun control would castrate American freedom. "Yeah yeah yeah. Can I like check my Facebook now?"

Let's change the argument, then. In my 28 June blog post, I was arguing against gun control at the ideological level--talking about ideas, like liberty and like the Constitution, which is itself an idea if you think about it, or rather a series of ideas captured on paper at a specific moment, preserved through the written word.

But Thomas Sowell, economic theorist and Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, argues against gun control for more practical reasons. "When you stop and think about it," says Sowell in his article today at Real Clear Politics online, "there is no obvious reason why issues like gun control should be ideological issues in the first place. It is ultimately an empirical question whether allowing ordinary citizens to have firearms will increase or decrease the amount of violence."

Sowell suggests that people reacting to the Supreme Court's decision yesterday upholding the Second Amendment shouldn't get all hot and bothered about it. Instead, they should wait and see how the decision actually influences gun-related crimes.

If the number of crimes decrease, then people can say, "Dude, they were right." (Or something like that.)

If the number of crimes goes up, though, then people should take action...not in railing the judges, but in petitioning Congress to repeal the Second Amendment. The bottom line is that the judges were just ruling according to the Constitution, and if we don't like their ruling, we the people have the ability under the Constitution to change the law "via the ballot box," as Sowell points out.

"Laws exist for people, not people for laws," Sowell says.

Sowell supports the Second Amendment and by extension the Court's ruling because "a vast amount of evidence, both from the United States and from other countries, shows that keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It is not uncommon for a tightening of gun control laws to be followed by an increase-- not a decrease-- in gun crimes, including murder."

"Bullcrap," you might be thinking. "This is just like those Teabaggers, trucking out all these annoying little obscure factoids to try to prop up their already bunko argument. How come we never heard of this stuff before anyways?" Glad you asked. Sowell already anticipated your question.

He explains how "a vast amount of evidence, both from the United States and from other countries, shows that keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It is not uncommon for a tightening of gun control laws to be followed by an increase-- not a decrease-- in gun crimes, including murder."

"Conversely," he adds, "there have been places and times where an increase in gun ownership has been followed by a reduction in crimes in general and murder in particular."


You asked "how come we never heard of this." Well, as he points out, "Unfortunately, the media intelligentsia tend to favor gun control laws, so a lot of hard facts about the futility, or the counterproductive consequences of such laws, never reach the public through the media.

"We hear a lot about countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States that have lower murder rates. But we very seldom hear about countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States that have higher murder rates, such as Russia and Brazil."


Concerning the Court's decision, then, as the saying goes, "The jury's still out." We the people will just have to wait and empirically prove whether the Court and the Constitution actually effectively stem gun violence, or not. Doing this will cut right through all the hot air emotions of arguments and get to the real-life issues that we all deal with, like worrying about whether we'll get shot full of holes while walking downtown today.

Still packin', at least for now

When you hear the words "Second Amendment," what do you think of first? The NRA, gun control, wingnut militias, "safer bullets" (as former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders so eloquently described them), or "what the crap"?

If your first thought was the last phrase I mentioned, you might want to stock up on other thoughts (i.e., by reading this post and the links attached) so you can think of something slightly less ignorant next time.

Hopefully when you hear those words, you think of the Constitution of the United States (1789), where this amendment is found among the nine other amendments in the Bill of Rights:

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As the National Archives website linked above explains, the thirteen original states refused to ratify the Constitution unless the Bill of Rights was added. Without these negative rights, i.e., rights that spell out where the government can't tread on the American people, the colonies believed the Constitution left a whole lot of sketchy leeway for the government to butt in on their private lives. The newborn American government could possibly even regress into a tyranny like the one whose chains they'd just busted (England's, stupid).

America's first citizens thus believed that an individual's right to own their own gun was essential to liberty.

Okay, blah blah blah. American Government 101. Enough said. Right.

Well, not according to the decision that was handed down by the Supreme Court today on McDonald v. Chicago. In this decision, the Court ruled 5-4 that America's first citizens were right on this individuals-can-tote-guns business. If one person had voted differently, then a precedent would have been set to vaporize the Second Amendment. Null, nada, kuch nehi, rien. Zilch. With one ruling.

Interestingly enough, the justices in the majority ruling justified their vote (in favor of the Second Amendment) by discussing how this amendment was necessary for the full emancipation of black slaves after the Civil War. They cite the Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866 in the following way:

"The most explicit evidence of Congress’ aim appears in§14 of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866, which provided that 'the right ... to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens ... without respect to race or color, or previous condition of slavery.'" (p. 26, Syllabus, McDonald et al. v. City of Chicago, Illinois, et al.)

For fun, you can read Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion on pp. 67-122 of the linked syllabus, if you're super bored and/or just burned through a case of Red Bull.

The point I'm making here is that this decision was close--too close. If the ruling had been 5-4 against the Second Amendment, the Court would have set a landmark precedent for the cause of gun control [read: government control], and against the cause of preserving American personal liberty. As Rush Limbaugh put it on his radio program today, "Even the Bill of Rights is up for grabs with this [current administration's] crowd and the left. Folks, we are hanging by a thread, we are hanging by a very thin thread."