Reflections From a Murky Pond

On Wednesday, July 22, 2009, President Obama acted stupidly. In point of fact, he behaved beyond stupidly. He behaved in an obviously racist manner that showed that he is still bitterly clinging to the Blacks’ tired grievances and feelings of insecurity. He also showed an intrinsic distrust of- and lack of respect for law enforcement personnel.

This is not the sort of attitude or behavior that right-thinking Americans wish to see publicly displayed by a POTUS. It is sadly not a completely unexpected attitude or behavior on President Obama’s part though.

From CNN’s transcript of President Obama’s July 22, 2009 press conference:

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Recently, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in America?

Obama: Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don’t know all the facts.

What’s been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house. There was a report called in to the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. So far, so good, right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger into — well, I guess this is my house now, so…

(Laughter)

… it probably wouldn’t happen. But let’s say my old house in Chicago.

(Laughter)

Here, I’d get shot.

(Laughter)

But so far, so good. They’re — they’re reporting. The police are doing what they should. There’s a call. They go investigate what happens.

My understanding is, at that point, Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words. But my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house and, at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped.

Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.

President Obama accused Officer Crowley of behaving stupidly for “arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.” This is an accusation that showed that President Obama was choosing to both comment and render judgment upon something that he knew little or nothing about.

Of course President Obama might have known all he needed to about the incident to form an opinion about it – that being that it involved a Black man and White police officer.

Gates was arrested, as President Obama stated, for Disorderly Conduct. What the POTUS chose to ignore was that the conduct in question was acting in a loud and disturbing manner in public while harassing, insulting, and threatening a police officer who was there solely to protect Mr. Gates’ property.

The details of the debacle – which nobody except for Mr. Gates seems to dispute – surrounding Gates’ arrest are fairly well known, so I won’t post them here. The police report on the incident, filed by both Officer James Crowley and Officer Carlos Figueroa – one of those oft-abused Latinos – can be found here, if you’re interested.

Stupid, racist, bitter, insecure, and hateful to law enforcement – that pretty much sums up President Obama’s performance as far as I’m concerned. Sad when you consider that he was heralded as an inspiration to every Black child in America.

Some inspiration; they already have too many role models for that sort of mindset. 🙁

Liberals, in their seemingly unending quest to disarm the American people, nearly continuously claim that stricter gun control laws reduce violent crime and make America a safer place in which to live.

Conservatives, in their seemingly unending quest to maintain the right of arms for the American people, nearly continuously claim that more lenient control laws reduce violent crime and make America a safer place in which to live.

Both sides have made such directly conflicting claims for decades and do not look like they’ll be shifting from their respective positions anytime soon. That being the case, it behooves people to do a bit of research into the available data in order to form an objective opinion. To that end I researched the FBI’s Violent Crime Statistics and the Brady Campaign State Scorecards.

This is where I totally enrage both sides of the gun control issue. Publishing non-partisan, objective data tends to do that.

Some key points of my findings are shown below. They do not well fit the claims of either side of the argument of gun control.

Top 10 Least Violent States

So, according to the FBI’s statistics on violent crime, the ten (10) safest (least violent crime per capita) states have Brady Campaign scores ranging from 4 (very lenient) to 54 (fairly strict).  Indeed, the safest is Maine with its rather Wild-West-esque Brady Score of 12 and the most dangerous – of the safest ten – is Connecticut with its Brady Score of 54. It seems that there is little or no correlation at all between gun laws and violent crime in the ten (10) least violent American states.

Looking at the other end of spectrum, the ten(10) states with the highest violent crime rates per capita, we see a worrisomely similar lack of correlation between gun laws and violent crime.

Top 10 Most Violent States

So, according to the FBI’s statistics on violent crime, the ten (10) most dangerous (most violent crime per capita) states have Brady Campaign scores ranging from 2 (extremely lenient) to 53 (fairly strict).  Even within this most dangerous ten (10) states there is no direct correlation between violent crime rates and the strictness or leniency of gun control laws.

Most telling though is the similarity in the Brady Scores between to ten safest and the the ten most dangerous states. Both group have a very similar set of scores and a very similar scattering of the scores in question.

Composite of Safest &  Most Dangerous Sorted by Brady Score

Given these results, it seems difficult – if not completely impossible – for an objective opinion to be formed that there is a direct correlation between the strictness or leniency of gun control laws in the states and those states’ respective levels of violent crime. I think it would behoove both the Liberal and Conservative camps to consider another point of contention.

Despite being Godless, the Atheists do have the capacity for dreaming. Of course their dreams might seem a bit strange to the rest of us. 😉

See more Lolcats and funny pictures

Of course odd dreams are to be expect from members of a cult who hold to the faith that once, approximately 14 billions years ago, there was no matter, no energy, no space, and no time – then it exploded. 😆

On Monday, July 20, 2009, President Obama, facing steadily growing opposition to his Universal Healthcare legislation, struck out at the Republicans who, along with a growing number of Democrats, find the plan currently before the US House of Representatives to be a piss poor thing.

Attempting to paint the opposition as being based entirely on partisanship and personal hatred, President Obama declared that, “This isn’t about me!”

The truly ironic thing is that he’s completely and utterly right.

This isn’t about President Obama. This isn’t about politics. This is about a proposed health care system that would break America’s families, break America’s businesses, and break America’s economy.

Any President who tried such ill-conceived thing would be treated in exactly the same manner and face the same levels of opposition. Just ask the Clintons. 😉

Were you ware that on the morning of May 25, 2009, a Starbucks coffee shop on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NY was bombed? Probably not; this sort of bombing isn’t particularly considered news by our MSM.

What you probably also don’t know, and would probably have to hunt to find out, is that this under-reported bombing was perpetrated by a Left-Wing terrorist who sought to emulate the violent assaults on “Corporate America” planned by a character in David Fincher’s movie, Fight Club.

From one of the few sites outside of NYC mentioning this, Newser:

A Fight Club-obsessed teen has been arrested for the bombing of a Manhattan Starbucks, the New York Daily News reports. Kyle Shaw, 17, modeled himself on the Tyler Durden character in the movie and sought to copy the film’s “Project Mayhem” attacks on corporate America, according to police. Shaw—who evidently forget that the first rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Fight Club—was busted after bragging to friends about the May bombing, said detectives.

— Rob Quinn

The terrorist, Kyle Shaw, was born in America and is a young, White male. It would seem odd that the MSM chose to not make a big deal about this act of domestic terrorism since Shaw would seem to be the perfect foil for the MSM – that is until you realize that Shaw was a Leftist terrorist.

The MSM is far less than willing point out the Left-Wing terrorists, even White male ones.

Of course this is to be expected; the MSM is infotainment, not journalism and it reflects the cultural and racial biases of its viewers. They’re the ones theoretically buying what the advertisers are selling.

With the Liberals’ fomenting such class warfare and hatred of the wealthy, it’s to be expected that there would be little if any outrage over attacks against American corporation, irrespective of how violent they were.

Scott Roeder, who killed the notorious abortionist George Tiller in a targeted execution, was branded as a horrific domestic terrorist by the Liberals and the media from coast to coast.  US Attorney General, Eric Holder even dispatched US Marshals to US Marshals to protect abortion mills across the nations.

Kyle Shaw, who planted a bomb on a busy Manhattan sidewalk and launched an indiscriminate attack that could have harmed or killed anyone passing by, was and is largely ignored by the Liberals, the MSM, and federal authorities.

It seems that, in the land that the Liberals and their MSM have created in the wake of America, only politically incorrect acts of violence and/or terrorism are despised.