Don’t Talk About That!

I am so tired of hearing that.

Different people care about different things. That’s part of what makes us, well, different.

You may not care that young Barry Soetoro ate dog meat, but his campaign is attacking Mitt Romney for transporting the family dog in a protected carrier on the roof of a crowded car.

You may not care what Obama’s position on same-sex marriage is.

You may not care about an alleged attempted bribe of someone who was perceived as capable of harming a Presidential campaign 4 or 5 years ago.

But some people do.

In fact, some of those people may not even be hurting badly because of the economy. They may be wondering why all you rugged individualists are whining about lost jobs, rather than going out and making your own job. (I expect that you are.)

My point is that if the left wins by creating distractions and playing up picayunish “sins” of their opponents, then it’s obvious that people respond to that nonsense. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for the right to engage in a little of it. Or a lot.

That’s why I will not be telling people, “Don’t talk about that.”

And Now for Something Completely Different

I want to write a post in sonnet form.
But just which form that is, I must decide.
It may be nice to keep old Shakespeare warm
By using that in which his wool was dyed.

But Spenser used a form Will hadn’t tried,
And, seems to me, a tougher challenge makes.
Each quatrain’s to the one preceding tied
With rhymes, which somewhat raises mental stakes.

And though my poetry is no great shakes,
I pray that it may you some entertain.
Gosh, that was coil’d more than many snakes!
I’m happy this line ends the last quatrain!

So now a couplet’s all that’s left to write—
With one last line, I’ll sew this thing up tight.

Courts Don't Grant Rights, Either

This story from the AP was put on KOLO-TV’s Twitter feed today. In brief, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that an illegal immigrant’s rights, including the right to keep and bear arms, are limited and not fully protected by the Constitution.

Most of the comments are some variation on the theme of “he isn’t a citizen, so he does not have the rights of a citizen.” I have to disagree. The Constitution (or any other Law made by man) does not grant the people rights; it simply recognizes certain of the rights we have as people. The right to defend ourselves, our families, and our liberty is one of them.

I realize there exists a policy where convicted felons are denied the exercise of the right to keep firearms. I’ve seen an explanation along the lines of: when a person commits a felony–becomes a criminal–that person has broken the unwritten compact of society. He thus no longer has the rights society enjoys, including freedom and firearms.

In this case, however, Mr. Huitron-Guizar was not a convicted felon when he was in possession of firearms. He did plead guilty to being an illegal immigrant, though, so I suppose it could be argued that he had committed a crime that broke the societal compact. Still, he was not yet convicted when he actually had the firearms.

Which leads me to another puzzlement: why should this restriction apply only to firearms? Why would we not also forbid felons from owning any sort of weaponry after they are released from custody, including kitchen knives, baseball bats, and even automobiles? In fact, if one has been released from custody, doesn’t that signify that we are accepting him back into society? Why should we then restrict any of the human rights recognized as belonging to society?

But I digress. My point is that the Constitution does not give us rights, by the same measure that the courts do not give them to us.

Shaking My Head (Part 1, probably)

As I was getting on the freeway this morning, in front of me was a late-model gold-colored Subaru Outback (NV plates 912-TKR) with a “Keep Tahoe Blue” sticker. For those who don’t know of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, it’s a local environmentalist group focused on water clarity, but also concerned with scenic beauty.

You can imagine my shock and surprise, then, when the driver tossed a blue cardboard package out the window.

Now, I do not know for certain that the driver was the owner of the car, and the sticker. It may be that he was borrowing the car, and didn’t want to forget to remove his trash when he returned it. I only know that he is a litterbug.

P.S. I had tweeted a couple of weeks ago about seeing a KTB sticker in Russian. It is an official product of the LSLT, as is the Spanish-language one.