Category Archives: Politics

What make the Roaches Run

Gay Marriage, is it normal?

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Marriage March 2013

Marriage March 2013 (Photo credit: American Life League)

No..  For thousands of years marriage had been defined as between a man and a woman…  and sexual conduct between person’s of the same sex was viewed as a “perversion” with practitioners of same being considered “perverts”.

Most state laws, even those not related to marriage, are based on “common law” which is a sort of unwritten law.  These unwritten laws were adopted over the years as a way to keep order in a society.  While many of these laws would fall in line with the “10 Commandments” the reason had more to do with the keeping of order, rather than a religious proscription..  This is why many none Christian countries had laws similar to those in Christian countries, as society understood that certain acts would conflict with the common good, and order, of a properly working society.  Murder, robbery, rape, theft, and things such as libel were know to creat disorder and were therefore prohibited.  The family, being important to the structure of society, was proscribed as being between a man and a woman, with added prohibitions against such things as being married to more than one spouse, marriage to certain blood relatives, and being married to a spouse under a certain age.  As for the last two the degree of prohibition varied by area.

In the United States there are a number of law that prohibit the practice of sodomy, which would seem to invalidate homosexual marriage, as well as incest, which had resulted in that prohibition.

The United States Supreme Court seems to be about to decide if the marriage of homosexuals in a constitutional right, or not.  Not being a constitutional scholar I don’t see the connection but, I can see the possibility of them striking down the bans against the marriage of homosexuals, which leads me to wonder how long it will be before they also strike down the other prohibitions.

A lot of the conversation has to do with what people think about homosexuals,  Are they really a perversion that society must be protected against?  I don’t know though I would have to go with the idea that they are not the norm, and to allow them to marry would help to diminish the concept, and purpose, of marriage.

I am reminded of an old episode of the TV show  ”West Wing” where several White House staffer were holding a discussion with several mid range military offices on what the President stance on this subject of ”Gays” in the military would be. At one point one of the staffers, makes that statement that “the President, as Commander n Chief of the Armed Forces can say that they can stay, and that is “it”".  The Military staffer points out that the Uniform Code of Military Justice still prohibits sodomy and that since that is a law passed by congress it doesn’t really matter what the President says, it is still illegal conduct.  The UCMJ also prohibits adultery.

Could the Supreme Court decide in favor of homosexual/Gay marriage?  Yes, it is possible.  What the constitution says is often a reflection of the Justices views and might have little to do with what the Constitution says.  Look at Justice  Sotomayor who made the statement during her confirmation hearings, which she later took back, that she would bring her “hispanic viewpoint” to the Supreme Court.  This is a sure indicator that she considers her viewpoint to be more important than what the Constitution actually says…  and she has voted with the Liberal block ever since…  All the Justices do is make the Constitution say what they want it to.  So the question is : are there enough Justices on the Supreme Court who understand that society, and the institution of marriage, must have a stable framework, or are there enough Justices who feel that marriage is just another legally recognized relationship that can be molded to fit their view?

We will just have to find out.

Thanks,

That Joe Guy.

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RPOF : Republican Party of Florida

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I was reading that paper today and saw the article about Jim Greer, the one-time head of the RPOF, pleading guilty to 4 corruption charges so, instead up to 70 years, he only faces up to about 35 years, though the recommended sentence is about 3 1/2 years.

Defense attorney Damon Chase had vowed to exonerate Greer but after the hearing said, “Sometimes clearing your name is less important than taking care of your family and new baby. … Once again Jim Greer is falling on his sword for a lot of other folks.”

It looks as if, maybe, he figured out that he would not be able to get himself out of this mess…  If what Chase said was true about his “falling on his sword for a lot of other folks” then we could expect to see some kind of deal that would make prison time acceptable to him…

I would like to believe that the only rot in the RPOF was Jim Greer but I don’t a great impression about the party these days.

Charlie Crist, who used to be a Republican, had been chased out of the party because he, while trying to do what he thought was best for Florida voters, had not stuck to straight party lines.  It would seem that Party lines were more important than what was good for the voters.  Crist, a popular ex-Governor of Florida, had shown the courage to vote for a number of Democrat causes, one of which got him up on the stage with Obama.  This tendency to vote for what he thought was right did not sit well with the RPOF and so they forced him out by supporting Marco Rubio for the Senate seat.

I am probably expecting too much from politicians…

It is a fact that no matter what good intentions the politician had when he ran for office he soon finds out that to stay in office he has to appeal to the money people, who will pay for his advertisements.  If big oil is going to put big money into an elections : who do you think they will support?  An environmentalist or someone who wants to do away with all those troublesome safety regulations….  When Bush II got into office and was making up his energy plan there was a complaint that he did not include any of the environmental groups on the panel.  This was answered by saying that the panel, made up mostly by big energy, did not need the input from environmentalist because they already knew what they were going to say, and they would make sure their concerns were voiced.  This would be like, if you were charged with a crime, a prosecutor telling you that there is no need for a defence attorney as they know what your arguments are and will make sure they get voiced in court.  What verdict would you see in your future.

How often do we hear primary debates where one candidate accuses another of all kinds of heinous crimes, only to come out in support of him in the general elections?  This always makes me think about the accusations…  If they were false why does the other party not sue their shorts off, and if they were true then how could he possibly support that person..  The truth is that it doesn’t matter to him, true or false, they are just things to say about his opponent in order to get re-elected.  The problem for us is this, if the charges were false the man is a liar, and if they are true, he obviously cares more about his party than he does the voters.

An honest politician would not tell un-truths and would refuse to support that person if the charges were true.  It is just THAT SIMPLE.

Going back to Greer for second..  Maybe it is that what he did was obvious in hind sight.  Maybe what was going on was not a obvious until it was discovered.  Then again maybe there is a culture of corruption that made him feel that he could do what ever he wanted and not have to worry about getting caught..

Anybody remember Marth Stewart going to jail for insider trading?  She was supposed to have gotten a phone call from someone who had  insider information, that she was supposed to have used to make trade, that she would normally not have known about, in order to make money…  Now think Congressional Oversight hearings where they grill executive from various companies.  These people have to answer the questions and sometime, even behind closed doors, information comes out that might be called “insider information“.  Did you know that the congress is exempt from the insider trading laws?  Yes, they can use this information for their own gain, though an ethical person would not take advantage of this..  There is the old saying about avoiding “the hint of impropriety”.  Some people put their assets in a kind of trust so that they will not have any control over them, or even know what companies they are invested in.  This does not mean doing as the Gov. of Florida, Rick Scott, did when he handed control of his assets to his wife.

I recently heard Rush Limbaugh ask the, I assume it was rhetorical, question of “Dingie Harry” about how he was able to become a multimillionaire on a Senate salary.

I aimed this at the RPOF, as I am a Registered Republican, but my real question is….  Why did we stand for a State Party leadership that just smacks of corruption?

I will say again “we got who we vote for”.

Thanks,

That Joe Guy.

Maybe we could look for a third party?  Like the Libertarians?

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Where do we go from here?

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President Obama has started his second term, and the American people have started their second sentence… though it was self imposed.

In two years the maneuvering for office starts again.  In three years, or so, we vote again, and in four years we get a new president…

Before long we will have another mid-term election to determine the make up of the Congress..  So what do we want this new composition to be?

Do we want to elect more liberals who appear to only want to expand the power of the federal government, or do we want to put people into power who see that BIG Government, or BIG BROTHER, might be the source of our problems…

It is nice to think that we could hand over control of our lives to someone who will take care of us  but, has the Federal Government taken care of us?  The percentage of food that is inspected is very low, with much of that being done by the very people who produce it.  Is it in their interest to find fault?  No..  All you have to do is look at the last outbreak of salmonella in cantaloupes that was due to an inspector who did not say anything about the lack of irradiation devices at the farm.  He was an industry supported inspector who was not properly trained.

The people who are responsible for the oil drilling in the gulf did a bang up job there, what with the explosion that caused the Deep Horizon disaster.  The Securities and Exchange (SEC) did a wonderful job in missing one of the largest pyramid scams in history in spite of the fact that a number of people had questioned the large size of returns that people were quoted.  All because Bernie Madoff had been a big wig a NASDAQ.  He even said, in an interview, that he was surprised that it had taken as long as it did to catch him.

The Secretary of Homeland Security said that it was the system that prevented the Underwear Bomber from setting off his device, even though it was just a dud and he was captured by fellow passengers.

If you really feel that more  of this is good for us, then let us make sure that the people we put into these post have some idea of what is going on…  Remember the fallout over the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina?  The guy ultimately in charge of that, and who stepped down afterwards, had gotten the job because of the amount of MONEY had had raised, and NOT for any competence he might have had…

Sure there might be an advantage to having the Federal Government put someone in charge of a situation but, do we really need the FEMA official who cut off power to an emergency generators that was powering the local Sheriff’s department communications system, or the one who turned back trucks, sent by Walmart, that had food on them?  No.

On the other hand we have a group that sees the government as part of the problem, and wants to remove regulations that interfere with production..  Like SAFETY regulations?

This groups sees that regulations hinder business and should be reduced.  They did a great job on catching Bernie Madoff, or preventing the Deep Horizon disaster?  NO.

We need to make sure these people do the jobs they have, and not spend our money thinking of more bureaucracy that won’t do it’s job.  We don’t need to take back government, it is already ours, we just have to make sure that the people we put into office understand that they work for us, THE PEOPLE, and not business or special interest.

If we could count on the Federal government to protect us we would see a decrease in the number of people who think they have to be able to defend themselves.  There was a recent news item that talked about the number of people who falsified information when they tried to purchase firearms from legal dealers.  Why are they not prosecuted for this?

Why could they not protect our ambassador in Libya?

Why can that not seem to do THEIR jobs?

Sure the government is supposed to be a framework that protects us, and our way of life but, why do we seem to want them to do everything?  What we need to do is take care of each other.  We need to encourage people to help each other.  People who fall on hard times need help not hassle.  The homeless, people who have many different reasons for being where they are, need help.  They shouldn’t be swept away because of the idea that if the government can’t fix them they are not worth helping.  I got news for you!  Most of the time the government can’t even help itself.

WE THE PEOPLE must make sure that these people are helped, not driven under, and that the officials we elect understand they are expected to help US do this.  There are plenty of people willing to do this and their efforts must be supported.  Just look around at the organization that provide support  to the homeless, and help them.

People who have fallen on hard times, for whatever reason, need to be helped, not pushed away.

I don’t mean we should promote a socialist society but, we should help the helpless.

Enough of my rant..

Thanks,

That Joe Guy.

Just an observation…

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Official photographic portrait of US President...

Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I see that there is a new flap over who President Obama had picked for the presidential inauguration… It seems that his first choice, the Rev. Louie Giglio, has withdraw, very soon after he was picked..  Why you might ask?  Well it seems that, for some odd reason that may have something to do with the Bible, he thinks, or thought, that homosexuality was a SIN.

Is homosexuality a SIN?  It might be..  there have been more knowledgeable people than I who have said yes, or no.  Each groups seems to find some portion of the scriptures that seems to support their theory…

So I am going to look at this in another light..  People get their values from the Bible.  I have always been told that these values were personal values and that tolerance means that I should not try to force them onto others.

Our government, the United States of America, is set up so that our laws are, yes, based on what the personal values of the majority are.  They were not setup as supplemental material to the 10 commandments, or an enforcement of Biblical views.  If that were true we would still be closing stores on Sunday, would know what days to not eat certain meats, or still be stoning people for heresy.

What we do have is need to pass laws for the common good, for the protection of the weak, and yes, to codify certain standards that society has accepted through the ages, and yes, through the ages Marriage has been accepted as the union of one woman and one man.  Utah was told this when they wanted to become a state, which turned out to be convenient for Utah as, it was about this time that the leader of the Later Day Saints go a new message from on high that polygamy was indeed wrong, and so Utah was allowed to join the Union.

There are laws pass against thing like, murder, rape, theft, and others, that have less to do with the Bible then a need for a stable society.  Some law, based strictly on Biblical views have either been struck down, or just left unused.  Take the laws on sodomy.  When was the last time you hear of anyone getting charged with sodomy, or bring up the idea that homosexual couple would be in violation of these laws.  Some years ago, you might remember the T.V. show “West Wing” about the White House.  A couple of the junior staffer were to meet with military representatives to discus gays in the military.  When the military people pointed out that the president wasn’t really serious about this, as he had sent junior staffers, the staffers replied that as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces if the President said it was alright for Gays to be in the military then it was the way it was.  The Military people pointed out that the Uniformed Code of Military Justice outlawed Sodomy, and that since the UCMJ was in fact a law passed by congress THAT is what would have to be changed before gays would be allowed in the military.

So, where are we then…  Some of the rules laid down in the Bible, now we are talking about the Christian Bible, have fallen by the wayside as Society changes.  One of the few consistent views had been the make up of the family being headed by one man and one woman.  If that is to change, then maybe we should take another look at where society gets it’s values..  Maybe, once homosexual marriages are widely accepted and the taboo against that is broken we might want to look and see if the taboo against incest still stands.  For some people the idea of a brother and sister getting married might not be as extreme as two men, or two women.

Final thought..  if an anti-gay preacher is unacceptable, then maybe we might look at having another type of priest do the benediction..  Maybe a Native American Sharman, or a Taoist Monk, or even a, wait for this…

VooDoo Priest.

Thanks,

That Joe Guy.

 

 

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Our Rights, and what are they?

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First Floor at the Statute of John Marshall, q...

First Floor at the Statute of John Marshall, quotation from Marbury v. Madison (written by Marshall) engraved into the wall. United States Supreme Court Building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think I have been pretty consistent about our right to “bear arms“.

I refute that our rights are limited to what people, or some of them, think we “need” to have.  The “Bill of Rights” says noting about these right being applied “only in time of need” but says, our right, what our rights are…  and they are not based on current need.

Who would be the one to say which rights we “NEED”?  Nobody.  Our rights are what they are, and this is not based on someone thoughts about what we need.  That includes rights other than the right to “bear arms”.

Most recently, in just the last couple of days, I have started to hear people say that our founding fathers did not intend us to have the kind of weapons that are available..  They rationalized that since the founding father did not know about modern weapons the could not have intended us to have the rights to them…

To this I have several things to say.  First, they did intend that we have a militia, which is basically a citizen army, which means we would have to be able to obtain weapons that could be used by the Military.  At one point in time the Supreme Court upheld the laws against short barreled weapons, say a shotgun that had the barrel cut down, with the reasoning that by cutting down the barrel it would render that same shotgun useable by a military and thus it was not in keeping with use by a Militia.

The second thing this persons statement brings to mind is that the founding fathers also did not envision T.V., Telephones, Telegraph, Electric typewriters, computers, the Internet and a whole bunch of things that have been invented since then..  Does this mean that we only have rights in relation to things they knew about?  Would our free speech NOT include the Internet?

Over the years we have gotten these answers from the Supreme Court each time they have adapted their ruling to changes in technology.  The rights against unreasonable search have been applied to things like our mail, the phone,and to some degree our vehicles.  The courts have applied the concepts to things that our founding fathers probably did not see coming.  What if they had said that there was no need for privacy rights to cover a wire going out of your house, and so anybody could tap your phone without a warrant?  They did not do this, as they reasoned that there were situations where a person had a certain “expectation of privacy” in which case a warrant was needed.

The “Bill of Right” says what they are, and the Supreme Court interprets what the “Bill of Rights” says…  Recent decisions by the court have dismantled some of the most repressive firearms law in the country.  Law that violated, or infringed on, our right to bear arms.

So, to those of you who feel that we, the law abiding citizen, have not rights to bear arms you would have to change the constitution so that we only have the rights that YOU think we should have…

On the other hand you should keep in mind that idea that we got the present constitution, and government, when they decided that changes must be made to the “Articles of Confederation” that formed the framework of our first national government.  They were just supposed to make changes to it.  Instead that gave us a completely different organization.

 

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