Violence, Guns, and Video Games - Grow UP, America!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/arts/television/21vide.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1187964000-CCeOO6yr2SlV8CsZg3PJEA

This may be an unpopular view, BUT...when is our government going to stop trying to parent our children? And WHEN are parents going to start parenting so the government doesn't feel a NEED to continually be trying TO parent?!!!

This whole violent video game controversy makes about as much sense to me as gun control. Guns don't kill people...screwed up PEOPLE do. Video games ALSO don't kill people, but sick people DO. A healthy, normal person is quite capable of responsibly handling weapon ownership and certainly capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality.

I was raised around guns, my father was an avid hunter, and also liked to go the range to shoot handguns. I was taught gun safety when I was very young. It would have NEVER run across my mind to "play" with a gun. I had parents that TAUGHT me. They did not rely on the school system, my friends, and other people to be my parents or "teachers" in ANY area of learning. I knew how to read and write BEFORE I entered school. My parents...PARENTED.

Make a law outlawing guns and law abiding citizens will follow it. The criminals don't care about the law NOW, they certainly will not THEN. Criminals....will always have guns.

And on the topic of video games, as I know they are a different subject matter than the gun control argument. The Columbine shootings are always brought up here. The kids that did that were psychologically disturbed kids. I would bet my life's savings that this was a problem LONG before they picked up a video game. Their parents seemed to ignore their strange anti-social behaviors to a good degree, and obviously did not get them the mental health HELP that they NEEDED.

I have been playing video games since their initial creation and release into the "public sector." I also allowed my son to play video games. Some...were probably a bit violent. But long before he (or I) began gaming, we had parents that had taught us the difference between fantasy and reality. I knew that Santa Claus wasn't real. (People REALLY need to quit LYING to their children.) I knew that movies were made by writers and actors. MY son knew all these things as well.

I've played a vast array of video games, from Painkiller to World of Warcraft, to Counterstrike, and I have never had the inclination to go out and kill anyone. I can say the same for my now 18 year old son, who is the varsity wide receiver for his high school football team, makes good grades in school, and WORKS, as well. He is a responsible young man who ocassionally enjoys (still) a good video game.

I think what this country needs to invest in, is a law and program that legally REQUIRES parenting classes for new parents. Period. Any IDIOT can have a child with no training or knowledge whatsoever. Instead of trampling our freedoms...why not teach people to be better, well...PEOPLE? And certainly there is a DIRE need for better PARENTS.

As human beings, when are we going to start taking RESPONSIBILITY for own OWN actions and quit blaming this, that, and the other thing? Inanimate objects and media are not responsible for the ACTIONS we take....WE ARE.

GROW UP America.

Again questioning....what happened on 9/11?

This is the FIRST account of 9/11 regarding possible government involvement that I have found to be this credible. It is full of news accounts (by major news media) that were censored from our viewing at the time of the events, and also the expert testimony of physicists and analysts we've not aforeto heard from. Please....if you are a U.S. citizen....take the time to WATCH this.

Okay, I'm not generally a "quick to jump to conspiracy theories" sort of person. I have been highly resistant to even considering the posibility up until now. I've been guilty of LAUGHING at people who considered it. I'm not laughing NOW.

True, I don't trust the U.S. Government any further than I can throw the lot of them, BUT...I've never been much on "conspiracy theory" overall. And yet I seem to see more and more accounts of things from 9/11, by people that were there, by scientists, by experts in many fields, that somehow I never saw the first time around.

Is it possible that the terrorists (if that is what we choose to believe) were able to infiltrate the buildings weeks beforehand and lay out timed explosives throughout with no one knowing? Or is it possible that, heaven forbid, this was the result of something even MORE terrible than an attack from OUTSIDE our country? I'm open to believing that anything is possible. Yet I don't come down on either side of the fence on this....not YET.

What do YOU think? 9/11 Revisited

How Would You Answer this Alarming Political "Quiz?"

MINI QUIZ


Question: Who said this?

"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation,". "We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland."


First try answer: George W. Bush?



Sounds like a good thing! Or...does it? The use of fear and psychological terror thrust upon nations by governments during times of upheaval and need for change is called propaganda. It has been used before. (see 'fine print' below for actual answer)


**************


The answer to the question: Adoph Hitler, writing about creation of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.


Interesting that he also said, "It is not truth that matters, but victory." Another quote, also from Hitler, "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." Are we beginning to see the problem here, fellow citizens of the United States?


For more quotes that will raise the hair on your neck see: Adolf Hitler Quotes Not a comprehensive list, but nonetheless....quite interesting.

Here you go, try this direct quote from Mein Kampf on for size, citizens of the U.S.:


Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
Volume Two - A Reckoning
Chapter XV: The Right of Emergency Defense


"A shrewd victor will, if possible, always present his demands to the vanquished in installments. And then, with a nation that has lost its character -and this is the case of every one which voluntarily submits- he can be sure that it will not regard one more of these individual oppressions as an adequate reason for taking up arms again. 'The more extortions are willingly accepted in this way, the more unjustified it strikes people finally to take up the defensive against a new, apparently isolated, though constantly recurring, oppression, especially when, all in all, so much more and greater misfortune has already been borne in patient silence."


Can you say PATRIOT ACT?

The Right to Bear Arms

" One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." – Thomas B. Reed (1886)

I feel a sense of outrage, mixed with fear....and not fear of other citizens, but fear of a government that tends to use current events to fuel political propaganda machines.

The right to bear arms....at what price?

I have very ambivalent feelings about this. To quote an article by a conservative (yes, I know, that's a shock coming from me):

"The fact of the matter is that gun bans do not work. Period. It only emboldens criminals that obtain guns illegally smuggled from nations who broke the very treaty they signed to keep international gun trades at bay. A citizen without a weapon makes for a very happy criminal. That criminal can rob and rape without the worry of being shot or stabbed in the process. However, a lady wielding a .40 caliber Glock tends to make a potential rapist back off. The very presence of a firearm in some cases are enough to actually prevent a crime from happening. Would a robber be more afraid of a homeowner with a 12 gauge shotgun full of buckshot or more afraid of a homeowner holding a telephone dialing 911? On average it takes about 15 minutes or longer for a police officer to arrive at a home after an emergency call. That's enough time for the criminal to have raped, robbed, and killed the person inside. However, if the person inside fires off a couple dozen rounds of 9mm shells, the criminal is guaranteed to be either full of holes or far away scared and hiding. Don't tell me that gun bans are good in making crime decrease because that's the biggest lie ever told." ( Rob Hood )

The original intent of the 2nd amendment was to afford a citizen the right to defend oneself and one's family from a potentially power-hungry government. It was not meant to be an excuse for us to war amongst ourselves.

Do we trust our government? I, for one, do not. Yes, they are "elected officials." Unfortunately, I don't even trust our election process fully. I do not have great faith in the government.

However, the above statement by Mr. Hood also makes such a valid point.

I have had discussions with people both from Great Britain and Canada and they often point out to me how many LESS gun-related crimes there are in their countries. However, they almost always fail to tell me their knife-related crime ratio. They quote these low crime statistics leaving out the population differences of our countries, and also the racial differences and tensions, along with many other factors that vary greatly when holding up the U.S. to other countries.

I do not believe that "guns kill people." I believe that PEOPLE kill people.

Do I think guns are dangerous? In the wrong hands, yes....I think they are. And yet, in the wrong hands a knife is dangerous, a bat is dangerous, even.....an airplane is dangerous. The violent will find ways to be violent. The laws do not matter except to the law-abiding citizen. Criminals will always find violent means to subject their victims to their will, regardless of any established "law."

With all that has happened within the past 2 days, this is not an easy topic for me. My mind reels with all kinds of statistics. I don't love my children any less than Canadian parents, or British parents, or any OTHER parents worldwide. They are precious to me. Life is valuable beyond measure. Yet how do you enforce laws on the unlawful?

Matthew Shepard and "Christianity" as we know it

Image via Wikipedia

I don't know why, but for some reason today, I thought about Matthew Shepard. I had not thought of him for some time. I suppose all of the fundamentalist garbage I've been reading online lately might have something to do with why my thoughts wandered this direction. (Matthew's funeral was on October 16, 1998. This is not "news," albeit still very revelant today.)

What sort of human beings would have an anti-gay, hate-filled protest at a young man's funeral who was viciously murdered by two men who killed him simply because they "hate fags?" What sort of human being would support such an act of callous evil?

The particular "Christians" that evoke the name of such an incredible, amazing, loving, holy man, Christ Jesus....how do you justify such heinous behavior? Seriously...I want to know. How are you different than the "terrorists" who seethe with hatred in their holy wars, fighting with fervor against those that would oppose them and their beliefs....how....just how, exactly, are you different?

I want to share a little something very personal about myself. I am almost embarrassed to call myself a Christian anymore. It was not always like that. I was born again at the age of 9, lived a life of devotion to Christ well into my teens. I fell away from the Lord in my late teens and became horribly addicted to drugs. At the age of 23, God reached down and touched me through a wonderful woman named Deborah Johnson. Debbie has since passed away of cancer.

Debbie was the first Christian I had ever met that loved me totally without condition, without judgment, without reserve. She told me of her love for Jesus unashamedly, and yet never, ever, condemned me, reviled me, shamed me. She glowed from within with a love I have rarely seen since, from anyone evoking the name of Christ. God's LOVE, through her, over time, changed my life.

I came back to the Church, broken, contrite, pained and humbled. I was hungry for the love that I had seen in Debbie. While she was dying of cancer....she was more full of life than anyone else that I knew. I wanted to know the source of such incredible love, peace, hope and forgiveness. I had touched it once, when I was very young, yet at the tender age of nine, I didn't understand what it meant to feel empty, void of hope, bitter, alone, abandoned and tossed away.

From the time I was very young, perhaps even as young as six years old, I had always noticed both men and women in a sensual sort of way. I thought human beings were beautiful, lovely, amazing creatures. I had tremendous faith in humanity and the goodness of God's creation. I loved...really loved...humanity. (For the pseudo-shrinks that will read this, no...I was not abused by my parents, sexually molested, raped, or emotionally starved. Some of you seem to think there must be some "reason" the GLBT community is they way they are. There is a reason...we were created as we are.)

Sometime in my early twenties, yes, before meeting Debbie even, I had come to accept that I was bisexual. I was taught that I was fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who knew my beginning and my end, and that He loved me as He MADE me. That He wanted me, that I was important to Him, and that He had not made any mistakes when He created me. I viewed/view men and women both as beautiful creations of a loving creator, meant to be appreciated and loved and enjoyed.

In my mid-twenties, after years in Church leadership, music ministry, worship team, and women's ministry, the Church had managed to "beat" out of me, all feelings of acceptance from God. I became less a miraculous creation of His, in my eyes, and the love that God had at one time given me for myself and others, began to wane. If you do not love yourself, how can you love another?

Again...feeling rejected by those I cared for and through them, rejected by my God, whom I had come to so love and trust...I eventually walked away from the Church. But I never walked away from my God. I knew His presence with me daily and I just knew deep down in the very depths of my heart, that He was not whom He was being portrayed by the Church as being.

I watched them via Exodus International, and other means, try to change people who were homosexual. I watched many deliverance sessions (for those that do not know, that is much like exorcism). I even had "deliverance ministry" and countless hours of prayer myself, in the Church's attempt to change me to conform to their image. It was wholly ineffective.

I married...twice...while active in the Church, and had a wonderful son from my first marriage. Yet part of me still ached. I did not feel I was fully whom God created me to be. Try as I might, with complete and raw honesty, to communicate this to my friends from the Church....I was unable to receive anything but correction, more attempts to "change me," and finally disgust and rejection from the people I had loved. Debbie Johnson was long gone by now, and I never truly saw what I had seen in her, in any other "Christian."

It is hard for me to see the Church as anything other than teenage children run amok in their arrogance and self-righteous loathing. Their Father has not changed. I believe He shakes His lovely head in disgust at what His children are doing to their siblings all over the world. I believe He cries over the pain His children cause each other. I believe He endlessly loves us ALL. I believe He is horrified at the things that are done in "His Name."

It is the deepest desire of my heart to always stay open to His Spirit and to listen for that still small voice within that moves me to truth, love, peace, and holiness. Yet my definitions of those words are far different than that of the fundamentalist right wing radicals that label themselves as "Christian." I do not see them behaving in ways that are Christ-like....and neither does the rest of the world. And yet, I have to believe, that it is not God we should be disappointed with, but it is His children who do not always represent His thoughts and His will.

I certainly do not feign having any special "revelation" about God. I do not profess to know really much of anything, other than what my spirit and my soul move me to believe. But again, I ask.....how is THIS Christ-like? (Watch the video and tell me what you see. I would love to hear from you.)

NOTE: ( This video has been removed from YouTube, and therefore from this blog post. I left all of the previous text however, and videos of Westboro's other "projects" can still be found with a Google search.)  To be fair regarding the viewing of the horrible hate-filled actions in this video....many, many Christians did denounce this mortifying behavior by Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS.

I am not saying that all Christians would approve of such behavior. I am saying that although most would likely not participate in such a hateful act outwardly....they agree with many of WBC's beliefs inwardly.

Do they have a right to speak their mind? Yes. But there is a line where human decency is crossed and freedom of speech becomes a hate crime.