“We start therefore with a strong presumption that
the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to
all Americans.”— Justice Antonin Scalia writing for the Supreme Court in 554 U. S. ____ (2008)
Blogs For Borders Video Blogburst 062607
Published Mon, Jun 25 2007 10:22 PM
Technorati Tags: Immigration
Domestic terrorism in California!
Arson on the border!
100% Preventable!
Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
Published Mon, Jun 25 2007 12:35 PM
Technorati Tags: Liberals, Corruption, Multiculturalism and Intolerance
Alcoholism is a sickness. Nicotine is addicting. Drugs are addicting. These are chemicals that physically disrupt the pathways in our nervous systems. Some drugs can be addicting with very few doses.
This type of addiction is physical. The body itself craves the addictive substance. The thing about all of these addictions though is that usually you have to make a conscious choice to consume the substance that you eventually become addicted to.
Nobody becomes an alcoholic without first consuming alcohol. Nobody becomes a smoker without doing so voluntarily. You don't get hooked on crack without smoking it yourself. There's definitely an element of personal choice involved.
Even so, these addictions can be hard to kick. There can be physical withdrawal symptoms when you stop consuming the drug. The symptoms can be severe.
But video games? Surfing the net? Give me a break!
This morning I read in the Olympian that there's a good chance that that will be the next "addiction". Actually, I guess it's already considered an addiction, but I think it's just another way to erode or avoid personal responsibility.
ORLANDO, Fla. - So you think your teenager is addicted to Xbox?
You may be right - and if the prestigious American Medical Association has its way, video-game addiction could become a legitimate medical condition.
It may sound like a bunch of hooey to a nation of game enthusiasts, but next week, at the AMA's meeting in Chicago, delegates will vote on a recommendation that "Internet/video-game addiction" be classified as a formal diagnosis.
I use the Internet from 30 to 60 hours a week. I use it as part of my job. I use it as a blogger. I use it to get news from multiple sources without having to pay for dozens of newspaper subscriptions. I use it as entertainment.
I'm not addicted to it though. I don't go through "Internet" withdrawal when I go on camping trips. I don't go through withdrawal when the power goes out. I think the notion of "Internet addiction" is ludicrous. If the Internet were suddenly gone I might be out of a job (or I might not, there are other uses for computers after all) and I'd lose a form of entertainment, but life goes on.
Both of my children are "video game nuts". They prefer playing video games over the "real thing". Thank God for that sometimes. My older kid (he'll be 21 next month) just loves to play those "first person shooters". Think of the horror if he preferred the "real thing".
They both become obsessed with their games. They'll play them for hours and occasionally become surly when they have to stop to perform their chores or go to work. When I was a teenager I was the same way, and video games hadn't been invented. It used to irritate the crap out of me when my mother called me inside to clean my room, or take out the trash.
I don't think this has or had anything to do with addiction. It was and is simply an aversion to work. It's not a new phenomenon. It can also be corrected without extensive psychotherapy sessions or behavior modifying drugs.
Not everyone is buying into this new malady, though. Some might compare it to a gambling addiction, but others see this as a lightweight diagnosis, akin to a shopping addiction.
"I'm an addiction skeptic," said Steve Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois and a research fellow with the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "Just because any activity might interfere with other activities is not enough to call it an addiction."
There's plenty of motivation to call it an addiction though. If you're addicted, then you "can't help yourself". You have a sickness. Let the trend carry far enough, and if your "addiction" interferes with your work performance you may be able to make an "Americans with Disabilities Act" claim.
In his practice, Dr. Joseph Keeley, an Orlando pediatrician, says he has seen evidence of addiction.
"There are some kids who clearly act like they're addicted, and, when you take them off, they'll go through withdrawal. They'll get irritable and hard to live with," Keeley said.
There are some kids that are irritable and hard to live with without "video game addiction" and withdrawal. There's nothing new about that. For thousands of years the "older" generation has complained about the poor work ethic and sullenness of the "younger" generation. Video games are just one current manifestation of the problem.
The problem hit home when he drove his daughter to Northwestern University last fall.
There, a Northwestern dean told him that 3 percent to 4 percent of the freshmen boys move into the dormitory, get their high-speed Internet hooked up - and never go to class.
"Needless to say, that's troublesome," Keeley said.
Sure it's troublesome. When I went to college, video games were brand new. They were just starting to become popular. I remember playing pong at Michigan State University. It was the first video game I ever saw. By the time I left the school there were dozens of much more advanced games.
Those video games didn't keep me out of class though. What did that was alcohol and hedonism. I was free from the behavioral restraints that had been imposed on my by my parents, and I indulged myself to excess. It ended up costing me my scholarships and I returned home to Florida in disgrace. Only through the grace of God and with my parents help was I able to clean up my act and finish college and take up a responsible life.
If you asked a dean from Michigan State how many freshmen move into the dormitories, get involved in the party atmosphere and never go to class in 1977, I wonder what the percentages would have been? Probably somewhere around 3 to 4 percent. Addiction to the Internet wasn't the problem then. The problem was a lack of personal responsibility.
Jones, the University of Illinois professor who has studied college students' use of video games, said American society overreacts to new technology - particularly when it involves children.
He said it started back in the 1920s, when there was hand-wringing about how movies were causing children to spend too much time inside.
"Fast forward, we started to hear the same thing about TV, then about comic books, the same thing about rock 'n' roll, the same thing about rap music and the same thing about the Internet," Jones said. "It's just a pattern."
So why is it that we have to find new disorders to describe every self-destructive or anti-social behavior in the world today? Could it be that the secularization of our society has left us without a moral compass? Could it be that the notion of personal responsibility and consequences is just too much to take for a few generations that have been raised with a silver spoon in their mouths?
If we're all addicted to this or that … If we all suffer from some form of mental disorder … why then none of us can be responsible for our own acts. If none of us can be held responsible for our acts then how can we hold any behavior to be criminal? The murderer must have been forced to do it by a mental disorder — we can't punish him for that. The thief had a psychological disorder — he couldn't help stealing your wallet — shame on you for wanting it back.
Today, many behaviors that were once deemed deviant or morally perverse are considered normal. We are told that homosexuality is normal. We are told that there's a genetic predisposition to homosexuality, that people cannot choose whether to be homosexual or heterosexual. There have even been recent studies that purport to show that society's repression of homosexual behavior may be responsible for the continued existence of a "gay gene" or set of genes.
None of this changes the fact that to engage is homosexual behavior is still a personal choice. Yes, it's true that some are forced into homosexuality by the predations of others, but for most it's a personal choice. Society once deemed this behavior to be deviant. Most religions still do. Today though, we consider it normal, because the homosexual is trapped by genetics. Personal responsibility is gone.
Our society has gone so far that to even say what I just did is considered to be morally suspect. Why, even by bringing it up I must be a homophobe and in need of sensitivity training. I think that's hogwash. I don't believe that homosexual behavior is the result of anything other than personal choices.
I know many people that are openly homosexual. Every one of them has made a personal choice to follow that lifestyle. I know better than to hold that choice against them. Whether I agree with those choices or not isn't the issue. Most of them are otherwise fine people that I am happy to know. The issue is that it's a personal choice, and that there are people that prefer to find a genetic cause rather than admit to personal responsibility.
Sexual predators use their so-called addiction to pornography as an excuse for their behavior. It's used to deny responsibility in court for their criminal behavior. They don't take any responsibility for the choices they made when they chose to seek out pornography in the first place. They don't take any responsibility for their crimes against others.
Today there are a great many people that are "addicted" to pornography. Is it really an addiction though? For that matter, is it even anything new? "Erotic art" has been around for as long as humanity has been capable of art. "Sex sells" is used as an excuse for pushing more and more unquestionably titillating material into prime-time.
Programming executives and marketing say that they're only catering to society's demands. But did society demand this degradation of our values, or did the programming planners help to accelerate it? Where is their responsibility for being the purveyors of this "addictive" content?
When personal responsibility is finally eradicated from our society our liberty will become license and our laws will become meaningless. If you recall anything at all about our history, you can see this trend continuing in our country since it's beginnings. This isn't a flaw in our government, it's a flaw in individual people.
Without personal responsibility our civilization will eventually fall, just as Rome fell. It will fall, eaten from within by the hedonists and the secularists that believe there is no true morality, and no personal responsibility. It will fall as our culture commits suicide, while the moral relativists cozy up to people who despise our hedonism and sloth.
Today Western Civilization is in a global war against terrorism. The terrorists we are most familiar with are motivated by (among other things) a hatred of the decadence of the West.
They despise our Republican form of government. They despise Democracy. They despise religious freedom. They despise our licentious culture. They despise our immorality. They despise our lack of resolve. The incredible irony of it all is that when our country is finally overrun by the Jihadis the "multi-cultural" relativists who are embracing them will be the first to taste the lash of Sharia Law.
If anything can destroy our civilization it's the trend within our society to abandon principles such as personal responsibility. The more we seek to blame outside influences for our behaviors and personal choices the more we buy into the "victim" mentality. If we're all victims, dependent upon our government to support us then how can we ever stand for anything?
And if we don't stand we will surely fall.
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Jane Fonda is still a communist sympathizer
Published Mon, Jun 25 2007 11:52 AM
Technorati Tags: News and Politics, Liberals, Media
Hanoi Jane, the communist sympathizer that was never indicted for treason when she gave aid and comfort to the enemy in Vietnam wants President Bush and Vice President Cheney impeached for "war crimes." This would be laughable if she weren't serious. It's just a continuation of an old pattern with her though, and shows that her sympathies haven't changed at all. She's still a communist.
From Newsmax:
Jane Fonda and a number of other prominent liberal figures have joined a campaign to impeach President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "war crimes.”
An organization calling itself The World Can’t Wait has taken out a full-page ad in Friday’s New York Times seeking donations and announcing upcoming town meetings in several cities.
The ad states that the U.S. government under the Bush administration "is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq.”
So just who is "The World Can't Wait"? Let's look at the bios of a few members of their steering committee from their own website… I've added emphasis to a few bits so you can see who they really are…
Mark James
I was raised on the east coast and came of age during the Vietnam War. Youthful yearnings for a better world drew me to the protest movements of the time. As the the power of that period waned, so did my hope of creating a better world. I spent the 80's devoting time to the development of my business (home renovations). After moving to San Francisco in the early 80's my friends began to die. Within a few years our community had been devastated by the loss of lives and the fear surrounding AIDS. The Reagan administration ignored the problem, forcing us into the streets and taking matters into our own hands. During this period I volunteered my services to grass roots AIDS service organizations. In September 2001 my outrage at the US Government needed an avenue of expression; the anti war movement that followed allowed for some of that expression. However, it has been during this most recent period with the development of The World Can't Wait movement and my role in building it that I have recaptured my youthful yearnings for a better world.
Allen Lang
Allen Lang is the National Student and Youth Coordinator for The World Can't Wait! Drive Out The Bush Regime. Allen got his start as a political organizer after witnessing the horrors that suffocate millions of sweatshop workers in the 3rd World and being inspired by the anti-Globalization movement that burst on to the scene during the 1999 Seattle WTO and IMF protests. As a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, he led student walkouts and demonstrations protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and was part of shutting down a military recruitment center during the March 5th 2003 Moratorium to Stop the War. After visiting the West Bank of Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement in 2002, he organized an East Coast Speaking Tour. He has lead workshops to stop military recruitment in high schools and has organized progressive film festivals in Utah and Philadelphia.
Prachi Noor
Prachi Noor was born and brought up in the midst of peasant struggles and women's movements in rural India. Inspired by the dedication of freedom fighter grandparents of India's independence movement, she grew up believing that change doesn't come without a fight. In the United States, she has been active with the anti-police brutality movement and has been at the forefront of the movement to stop the repression of Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities. She has been part of organizations like the Blue Triangle Network and Youth Solidarity Summer.
Debra Sweet, National Co-ordinator
Debra Sweet is the National Co-ordinator of World Can't Wait. Richard Nixon refused to speak to the press for six months after the US invasion of Cambodia. When he finally appeared before the White House press corps, it was to make awards for service and bravery to Young Americans, whom he said were "not out protesting". I was 19. When he handed me the award, I told him that he was responsible for killing millions of people in southeast Asia. He got angry, turned and left the room, making a front page story and international news. Antiwar sentiment had seeped into the Blue Room and was pervading every part of US society - not to mention the world. The Emperor had no clothes, and when someone says that; an Eartha Kitt, a Debra Sweet, a Cindy Sheehan, it can galvanize others to speak and act on the truth. There are millions out there who can take inspiration, and act. The end of the story isn't written yet...
That should be enough…
This organization is led by aging hippies trying to relive the "glory days" of their rebellious youth. They displace the blame for the Communist MURDERS in Southeast Asia upon the only Republican President in power during the Vietnam war, the man that gave us "peace with [dis]honor". Never mind that it was a Democratic President that got us into that war, and a Democratic President that lied to the American people about the Gulf of Tonkin.
The World Can't Wait is led by active Communists and Socialists. It's led by anti-Capitalists. It's lead by people that hate President Bush with an irrational hatred. It's led by people who hate the very form of the United States government.
Jane Fonda was a communist sympathizer during the Vietnam war. Apparently that hasn't changed at all. She's still associating her name with communist causes, and the New York Times happily promotes it.
Trackposted to Right Pundits, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Committees of Correspondence, DeMediacratic Nation, Jeanette's Celebrity Corner, DragonLady's World, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, The Bullwinkle Blog, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Dumb Ox Daily News, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
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