A Gun is a tool. It delivers a bullet at hi-velocity to wherever the muzzle is pointed, and impacts whatever it makes contact with. If you are trying to obtain meat to feed your family and what is impacted is a 12 point buck--this is a survival tool, much like a knife or a hatchet or an awl. Our ancestors relied on this tool for obtaining food, and providing security for their families, in a frontier environment.

But how many of our founding fathers were packing pistols or even carrying rifles when they attended the Constitutional Congress? How many citizens were walking around the streets of New York or Philadelphia packing heat?

Out West of course, on the frontier--you had to  have a gun--not only did you need meat, there was no refridgeration, after all--but you might encounter bandits or others hostile to your existence.

However--times have changed. The notion that I need to pack a pistol on my hip when I go to the mall, or the supermarket, or the movie theatre, for self protection, says more about me than the environment I might encounter.

Most of the time, the public only becomes aware of guns in public places when some nut goes on a rampage, with tragic consequences.

So, if  you were going to a political event--why would you bring a tool--why would you carry a gun? And, why would you carry an assault rifle--a weapon with exclusively military purposes? Are these gestures supposed to send a message? Of course I have the RIGHT to bring these tools. And maybe there are some citizens who choose to bring a skill saw or a hammer or a pipe wrench to these public events--that is their right to do so. But WHY would you bring a pipe wrench to a Townhall meeting? To send a message? What message?

If I bring an assault rifle to a public place, am I expecting to encounter other citizens with assault rifles who might turn them against me? Or am I merely a rattlesnake skaking my rattle? Is there really any mystery about the statement being made? Is it time for ALL of us to go out and get assault rifles? Is it the end of the peacekeeping Gendarmerie? Is a well armed society a polite society? Or a bloody society? So, what next, Civil War? Are the streets of America's cities about to be filled with sharpshooters and citizens running for cover?

Let me get this staight. A police officer walks into someones home, univited, claiming to be investigating reports of breaking and entering, and demands some identification. The occupant provides the identification and requests the name and badge number of the investigating officer. The officer does not respond. The ID establishes that this is the resident and rightful occupant of the home. He aks again for the officer to provide his name and badge id. The officer again does not respond. The officer walks out onto the porch, and the legal resident follows him, continuing to request his badge number.

At that point, the investigating officer turns and informs the resident, "You are under arrest for disorderly conduct." He then transports the resident to jail, when he is processed and left cooling his heels for 4 hours waiting to be released onto his own recognizance.

In addition, the resident is an elderly gentleman who has established that he is a Harvard professor, with no prior arrest record.

Incomprehensible isn't it? Sounds unprofessional, doesn't it? Now, let's add one more fact to the stack. The resident is black.

He has asked for an apology, on the grounds that he was unfairly and illegaly arrested. The arresting officer has refused. What is the basis for this refusal? Does he resent the man asking for the apology? Why? Does he feel he has done nothing wrong, and caused no injury to the resident? Does he feel that apologizing is an admission of wrong doing, or weakness?

My own view is that his decision to arrest Professor Gates in the first place, is illuminated by his refusal to offer an apology. He truly has no regrets? He is on the verge of becoming the poster child for racial profiling and he has NO REGRETS?

What was the crime that Professor Gates committed. Oh--the arresting officer says he was loud. And what exactly is: tumultuous? That sounds like my washing machine in full agitation mode. Is it against the law to be tumultuous, if no bodily conduct or threatening behavior is involved?

Is it a crime to ask an officer for their badge number? Should a citizen be arrested for doing so?

The body of Russian human rights activist Natalya Estemirova was found lying in a ditch riddled with bullet holes. She had been shot, execution style. Witnesses saw 4 unidentified men hustle her into an unmarked white car while walking to the bus stop on her way to work. She was a fearless defender of the truth. Her death is a loss to everyone who hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

The circumstantial details tell an intuitive story. She was a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin puppet they installed as the Chechnyan president, Ramzan Kadyrov. Qui bono? It seems the Russian state still has the ability to 'disappear' it's critics and it's inconveniences, wherever and whenever they want. remember polonium victim Alexander Litvinenko? Does anyone really believe that Natalya's asassins will be put to justice?

Secret death squads, operating wherever they will--as judge, jury, and executioner.

Is THIS what Cheney had in mind?

This is probably the stupidest remark I have heard in a long while--so it deserves at the very least a 5-cent exegesis.

To begin with, no man, white or otherwise, has ever walked this earth without first being birthed by a woman. So, to begin with, women built this country. In fact women are the authors of the world and its history.

And they built it long before the first Europeans with their spiritual and cultural blindness ever crossed the great waters. The early colonists would have perished if not for the assistance rendered by indigenous Americans who taught them survival skills and provided them with food.

There is a historical thesis that the Iroquois Confederation was the inspirational source for the American Constitution, and at the very least were influential in shaping the political scientific thinking of 'founding father' Benjamin Franklin. Add to that the labor and ingenuity provided by the original black colonists, who also constructed the Capitol, and whose labor made Cotton the King in the south, and White Men recede a little further in the distance. Then, consider the contribution made by Hispanic,and Asian settlers and arrivistes and 'this country' begins to take shape. No one can deny that black folks gave America the form of music known as The Blues, and Jazz, which have gone one to create a great wealth of culture both in and out of America. I could go on and on, but library shelves full of books document the contributions that persons who are not white males have made to build this country.

The Europeans who first arrived in the Caribean instituted a program of ethnic cleansing that wiped the Caribe indigenes off the face of the Earth. When Europeans first arrived in Australia, they hunted the Aborigenes like dogs. The Aborigenes had one of the most advanced spiritual and artistic cultures the world has known at that time--but all the English invaders could see was 'Savages'. The Australian environment was the consequence of 40,000 years of gentle and harmonious shaping by the hand of the Aborigene, who had the skills to turn poisonous streams into potable water, and make a nice boulevard through the forest for easy hiking. Europeans, with their scientific focus and their 'Christianity, were paradigm bound, and blind to the cultural and spiritual qualities in the societies they encountered as their technology spread them around the globe. Spanish Priests burned the entire library of Mayan codecs, save for a couple that escaped their notice.

That someone like Pat Buchanan could assert that white men built this country is evidence that the blindness and ignorance persist to this day. If the children of the Europeans could only realize what their blindness has meant as a curse for them they would weep for their own poverty of mind and spirit.

Signed,

A white male descendent of British ancestry

Of course, YOU knew he was bullshitting all along that the torture techniques saved millions of lives. You knew he was waging an information war--now of course, Cheney signals that the program of which torture was merely the tiniest insignificant part, is what yielded the high value goods. The torture part was ancillary...

So all he was ever trying to do was give his handful of diehard extremist supporters some talking points to use in his public defense. You figured as much. Of course, the collateral victim in this act of political obfuscation is the discussion about how to engage jihadists and terrorists who cling to dangerous and bizarre belief systems, both foreign and domestic, in the manner that is most efficacious with respect to both learning what they know, and defusing them from further attempts to commit or conspire to commit violent acts of terorism.

Remarkably, the folks who seem to have had the greatest success with this are the Saudis, and not only do they have a consistent track record, but they have been at it for quite some time.

See Deprogramming Jihadis

It's clearly complicated, both socially, politically, and psychologically. Any young loser in Saudi Arabia can become a Jihadist and get instant heroic status, and that is a part of the problem. That is also why trying to deal with the problem using the old typical authoritarian ways of dealing with hostiles and renegades,  is probably the least effective way of defusing the situation. Violence and torture will reinforce the psychological framework that motivated the Jihadist in the first place, it will not only confirm all their notions about the evil natue of the infidels, but the very act of enduring this 'evil treatment' at the hands of the faithless will elevate them into that heroic martydom that they sought to begin with.  No good information can come from it, and no deradicalization, either. The only thing that comes from it is further recruitment back home.

Really, the question boils down to this: Do you want the violence to stop, or do you want  unending vendetta?

One view of capitalism is that it is the art of persuading you to open up your wallet. Obviously you care about the things you need, such as food, gas, and medicine, but you do not live by bread alone. Most of us give to causes we care about, and the more deeply we care the more we open up our wallets. If someone can figure out a way to make you care enough, you will give them money. You will listen to their radio programs. You will by their books. You will vote for their candidates. You will watch their TV shows. You will attend their public lectures. I have to find new strategies to make you care enough to keep your wallet open. My kids need braces. My yacht needs to go into dry dock.

That clever someone can grow very rich from all that demagoguery. They can get elected to office. They can publish best sellers, built broadcasting empires, create non profit organizations, tour the lecture circuit. You just have to find your target demographic and push their buttons and they will open their wallets. If one of the side effects of this is that your particular demographic occasionally becomes disturbed to the point where they can no longer restrain their violent tendencies--well, that's a question of personal accountability, after all. If I am in the business of selling alcohol and you are an alcoholic, well, that is your problem--here is your fifth of vodka.

My point is that to a very large extent, the industry of right wing demagoguery has become BIG CAPITALISM. It isn't simply about issues of policy, anymore. There is too much commercial organization and what marketing mavens call 'synergy'. Right wing demagoguery and pushing your buttons is a product, like milk. And the cows need to be milked, and the milk needs to be delivered. Why would anybody tune into Rush, or buy an Ann Coulter book, unless they had become a junkie seeking their fix? Yes, there is a similar pattern on the left. But it is a question of scale and degree. Who are the easily identifiable left wing demagogues living in high castles and driving around with their private security forces in their armored humvees? Not too many people on the left have grown rich exploiting the public's concern for old growth redwoods, coral reefs, and whales. There it is.

No, the fever swamp has been strategically filled to reach a specific target demographic. There is big money to be made off the fever swamp. It's low hanging fruit. Just take a serious look at the whole market ecology for 'issue related products' and observe the money flows, and you will see what I mean. That is why the demagoguery, like military adventurism will not go away. There is simply too much money to be made.

My point is a little abstract, I admit. But connect it to Rush, the Heritage Foundation, Right to Life orgs, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, G Gordon Liddy, Dobson, and so on, and the pattern repeats itself, over and over and over again. These people are not merely advancing an ideological agenda--they are accumulating capital. It's an industry.