Trump’s Big Mouth, Goggle Going GaGa, and Red Flag Warnings

President Trump continues his inexplicable and exasperating habit of conducting artillery practice on his lower extremities.  There should be a lifetime curse first upon the Republican Party for allowing this blowhard to gain the nomination(s).  Secondly, there should be another lifetime curse upon the Democratic Party for giving us no rational alternative to this man in the upcoming Presidential election.

Oblivious to how critical his policies are to the future of this nation, Trump continues to bluster about as if the White House is his pre-ordained abode for an eight-year period.  Having come into his office by the thinnest of margins, he behaves as if the upcoming election is nothing less than a coronation for his second term.  Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t this the very attitude that contributed greatly to Hillary Clinton’s defeat?

There have been three recent episodes that illustrate perfectly what I am talking about.  First up is Trump tweeting and re-tweeting about some conspiracy theory that involves the Clintons in the Epstein death.  Does anyone need to be reminded about Bill Clinton’s dalliances with the opposite sex and the trail of dark secrets that have followed both Clintons throughout their careers?  And even more importantly for the President….Does the old saying about glass houses and stones have any meaning for you?

Next up is Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks about U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib’s proposed visit to Israel to visit her grandmother.  Fully capable of matching Trump in outrageous rhetoric, Tlaib needs no help from the President in making a complete fool of herself.  Trump is never satisfied with his enemies having sufficient rope to harm themselves; it seems he must seize it from them only to allow its return at a later date.  The problem with this strategy is that part of the time, he is holding the rope.

Finally, following his campaign rally in New Hampshire, Trump remarked that his crowds were far greater and more adoring than Ronald Reagan’s.  Why in the world does he want to go there?  It seems never sufficient for President Trump to be compared favorably to any individual: he must be compared superior to every individual.  

In the same New Hampshire speech, Trump boasted that even though a lot of voters may not like him personally, they will have to vote for him because they have no other choice.  According to Trump, his imperviousness to voter sentiment is due to his excellent record on policy and the weak cast of potential Democratic opponents.  I am one of those people that Trump was talking about.  I really like most of his policies but dislike greatly the man heading them up.  As much as I see this upcoming general election as a watershed moment for our nation and acknowledge the fact that the policy advantage is heavily on the Republican side of the ledger; remarks like this one can give me second thoughts about putting this type of egomaniac back into the White House. President Trump is at a crossroads in his political career.  He can either choose to gain a modicum of humility, civility, and leadership in an effort to lead this government in an honorable and effective fashion…or…he can continue to serve in his role as a useful idiot to all of us opposed to the maelstrom that is the bizarre Left.

Google is the Disneyland of high tech corporations.  It is apparently a clownship manned by juveniles that has the good fortune of being the only ship in the sea (kinda like Gump’s shrimp boat being spared by the hurricane).  Their refusal to work with the U.S. military on artificial intelligence (AI) and instead choosing to share all of its AI resource data with China and its military is a mind-numbing act of stupidity.  Read about Project Maven here:  https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/News/Article/Article/1254719/project-maven-to-deploy-computer-algorithms-to-war-zone-by-years-end/.   I can understand, and share, the sentiment when someone distrusts our government regarding the grant of special powers, knowledge, or authority.  But to consciously choose to share groundbreaking AI applications with China while choosing to shield it from America is insane.  What is this globalist attitude that is permeating so many American corporations?  Have they forgotten history or are they simply too lazy to research it?  Do they not realize there is no delineation between the Chinese government and all other things China?  Do they not know that China currently has re-education camps for Muslims?  Does the Tiananmen Square episode hold any meaning for these clueless people?  Can they not see from current events in Hong Kong how difficult it is to escape from the shackles of Chinese oppression and autocracy?  Do they not appreciate exactly what their forefathers sacrificed so many years ago to throw off similar shackles in order to establish the freedoms that we now enjoy?  How naïve can they possibly be to not realize the treacherous path they are traveling?  This article by Jonathan Turley is a perfect example of what I am talking about: https://jonathanturley.org/2019/08/20/we-didnt-see-a-single-homeless-person-chicago-teachers-union-members-fly-to-venezuela-in-show-of-support/#more-147476 .  I applaud the effort of any citizen to make this a better country and our planet a better world; but please…take the first step by becoming self-aware, educated on reality, and departing from your meandering hypocritical ways.  This ongoing epidemic of flavor du jour social advocacy by radical Liberal Americans is becoming very tiresome.

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There is a movement afoot to establish some Red Flag Warning protocols in the effort to deal with gun violence.  It is an indisputable fact that there are some people amongst us who should not possess a firearm.  Heck, there are some people amongst us who should not possess a fork.  The problem is not recognition of this fact.  The problem is exactly who or what will determine who these people are.  As if the Obama Administration and the whole Russian Collusion Farce is not sufficient proof, let me state for the record one more time…power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Our FISA protocols are perfect illustrations that the process is only as fair as the people who administer the process.  The Second Amendment is in place for a reason.  Anyone who doubts that reason simply needs to take a few moments and reflect on the state of American culture and society.  As strong, vital, and resilient as our nation is; we are at any one moment just a few short steps from anarchy.  If push comes to shove and the ruthless rule the day; one’s capacity to defend themselves and their loved ones will prove to be of supreme importance.  There are many firewalls between us and that terrible situation; chief among them is the Constitution and Bill or Rights.

Before serious gun control measure discussions can be commenced, there must also be a return to reality in regards to the term assault weapon.  This term means very different things to different people.  It has been tossed about in a careless and disingenuous fashion and is largely a cosmetic term.  I submit to you that the overwhelming majority of people apply the descriptor assault weapon based on the appearance of a firearm.  If it looks like something the Terminator or Rambo was using, then it is an assault weapon.  This method of defining a variety of gun that may come under government control is wholly inadequate and irresponsible.  We need to dispense with this term post haste and get down to defining a weapon by specific metrics.  The focus needs to be on the automation of the weapon, the type of ammunition it utilizes, and the nature of the clip action.  The same rifle that may be used in an assault might very well be used to hunt and put dinner on the table.  It is possible that there are certain characteristics of rifles that make them inappropriate for civilian possession and quite applicable for military and law enforcement applications.  We don’t need to be banning certain guns based on the way they look; we need to examine what they are capable of doing.

There are two fundamental points that each side in the gun control debate must unequivocally accept before good faith negotiations can proceed on gun rights.  First is the fact that each of us has a fundamental, primary, and legitimate right to own a firearm.  Any law or regulation that assumes to eliminate that right is a non-starter.  Secondly, the right to bear arms is not wholly sacrosanct and may be regulated.  The greatest freedom that Americans enjoy is their liberty.  Yet every day in this nation, people appear in courtrooms accused of crimes; some of them are incarcerated with no finding of guilt.  They are remanded to custody with no official designation of having committed a crime.  It is true that due process of a fair trial will follow; but the point is that there are times when even our dearest freedoms might be addressed in order to maintain order and civility.

It is unfortunate that we are now inextricably located on the slippery slope of gun control.  It is doubly unfortunate that the imperfect government that will determine the extents of that gun control will do so in a hyper-partisan atmosphere of political foolishness.  But it is beyond denial that we have reached a moment in our country’s evolution where the violence that we perpetrate upon each other with firearms has reached a level where deliberate, transparent, and extremely thoughtful restrictions might be placed on the possession of guns.  There is room for compromise on limiting the size of clips, looking closer at the issues surrounding automation of weapons, and reconsidering the efficacy of background checks. 

We had better be extremely careful to maintain the balance between fundamental rights and the need for civil authority.  And more important than that, we should very cautiously approach the threshold of that door that will permit a governmental entity to decide who can possess guns, what type of guns they may possess, and how those guns might be used in America.  The freedoms that our predecessors and current first defenders shed blood to earn and maintain must not be ceded without intelligent and common sense consideration.

Intelligence Based Policing (IBP) is something that needs to be implemented in a very responsible and transparent fashion.  Without going full Minority Report, our law enforcement agencies must have some ability to prevent certain crimes before they are actually committed.  Once again, it would be a huge mistake to completely sell out to the ideal of IBP; but carefully regulated IBP with clearly adequate safeguards to protect civil liberties is an area whose time has come.