That Which Divides Us.

My daughter was looking through posts on facebook the other night when she came across a term she didn't know:  Cisgendered.  I didn't have a clue either, so we looked it up.

Cisgender and cissexual (often abbreviated to simply cis) describe related types of gender identity where an individual's self-perception of their gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

So we need a term to describe people who are okay with either having male sex organs or female sex organs.  

I look around our country and watch politicians and regular people alike assign everyone they know to a group.  White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Male, Female, and now we have....Cisgender.

There used to be a time when we encouraged our children not to label people based on the circumstances of their birth.  We told our kids not to judge a book by it's cover.  Now, all we do is separate our society into groups based on skin color, religion, and it appears, sexual orientation.   Now according to all those people fighting for transgender rights, I am obligated to qualify myself as cisgender?  

Take a look at all those groups above.  Instead of seeing what's different about them, try finding what's the same.  Let me help you.

We all have a mother and a father. (Whether or not they were good parents, or even parents who were around, it's a basic biological fact that you need both to exist.  Crappy parents is a post for another time.)

We all have a beating heart and a brain.

If you cut us, we all bleed.

We all have fears, hopes, goals and dreams.

We've all smiled, and we've all cried.

We all have unique personalities.

And yet, we divide ourselves, every day, based on one characteristic.  Whether it's skin color or religion, political party or sexual orientation, we separate ourselves into groups.

I am not cisgendered.  I'm a person.  Just because I am a girl, who is perfectly okay with being a girl, doesn't mean I need to be separated into some group, just so that some other group has a name for me.

I am a white female, stay at home mother, of both Christian and Libertarian values.  But beyond every single one of those individual things you will look at to label me, I AM A PERSON.  Same as you.  Same as my neighbors.  Same as people who live on the other side of the world.  

And as far as this country we live in?  We have one more thing in common.  We are all Americans.

You want to end divisiveness and hate and bigotry?  

Stop.Labeling.People.

Period.

The End.

On Outrage, Justice and What Comes Next.

For two days now, I've debated on whether or not to write this blog.  There is way too much animosity and emotion in the subject I am about to discuss.

On July 11th, the body of Darryl Green, 17 year old black male, was found rotting face down on the floor in Chicago.  Cause of death?  Gunshot wound.  His family says Darryl disappeared after refusing to join a gang.

On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, black male, age 17, was shot and killed at close range after an altercation with neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman.  This happened in a gated community  in Sanford, FL.

Both of these deaths are tragedies.  Both are young men snuffed out before their life ever really began.  Only one made national news, occupied the airwaves for months, and has resulted in the most vile language and threats.

Why?  Because one of them involved a Hispanic male, the other was most likely black on black violence in a city where kids dying has become normal.  One is obviously seen as less of a tragedy, because President Obama has yet to stand up and say "If I had a son, he'd look like Darryl Green."  

I'm so tired of the outrage and calls for justice in the death of Trayvon Martin, even after justice has clearly been served.  A jury of 6 females acquitted George Zimmerman of both the charges of second degree murder and manslaughter.  Plain and simple, the state of Florida did not have evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that George Zimmerman acted in anything other than self defense.  Him being a different skin color than Martin is not proof, because as the death of hundreds in Chicago has proven over and over again the last two years, black men are more than willing to shoot other black men. 

And yet, as more and more young black men fall victim in the President's home town, there is so very little outrage, so few people demanding justice, so few people wondering what the heck is going on.

That was all reserved for the town of Sanford, FL, and one death, that by all evidence was a tragic shooting in self defense.

Trayvon Martin had 4 minutes from the time George Zimmerman placed his call to police dispatch, and the time that call ended, to walk the 80 yards to the house he was staying at.  Get home, lock the doors, call 911.  And  yet, we are painfully aware of the fact that he chose not to do that.  Before George Zimmerman ever left his truck, Martin took off running, not to his home, but to some other destination that would eventually lead to the confrontation that ended up being the last thing to happen in his life.  I urge everyone to listen to that full four minute phone call.  At one point in the call, George Zimmerman says he has no idea "where the kid is".  We will never know what happened in the time between that phone call ending, and the gunshot, but we do know why Trayvon Martin didn't call the police, didn't go to the house 80 yards away, and ended up on top of George Zimmerman, pounding his head into the pavement.  The only injuries, outside of the gunshot wound, to Trayvon Martin, were knuckle injuries consistent with the testimony of George Zimmerman. We know the trajectory of the bullet was consistent with Martin being on top.  The gun was fired at close range from a downward angle.  And despite all efforts, even the FBI has stated that race was not a factor in the shooting.  

It was a tragic death, and one we should maybe be using as a teachable moment. Instead, actors, sports figures, and musicians took to twitter and pontificated on racist America, told jury  members they should commit suicide, and threatened the life of George Zimmerman.  Not to mention the thousands of young people who offered to kill Zimmerman themselves.  Seems we've learned nothing from this.  Violence killed a 17 year old boy.  And the response is more violence.

And in Chicago, the family of Darryl Green mourns in private.  Most of this country doesn't even know he exists.  His only crime was refusing to become part of the circle of violence decimating Chicago's young black male population.

Where is the outrage for all those other dead boys?  Is this country so obsessed with race, that we only care if someone who is not black kills a black child?  In Chicago, killing young black men is an industry, but because the shooters are other young black men, no one even pays attention.

In Chicago this year, more black children have died, then all the white children killed in Sandy Hook.  In the past 40 years, we have killed more unborn black children, than black people have been killed since before the civil war.  Where is the outrage over ANY of this?

There is none.  There in only outrage reserved for this one death, this one tragic death.  

What should come next is a serious discussion about why our young people think violence is the answer.  Why bragging about fighting and beating people up is the cool thing to do.  Why Trayvon Martin thought confrontation would be a better outcome than just going home.  

A few years ago, a couple of drama enabled teenage girls showed up on my property trying to get my girls to come out and fight.  My girls figured fighting wouldn't solve the problem, not to mention what their parents might have done when we found out.  These girls were on our property, making threats, and yet, my girls locked the doors, stayed inside and alerted my husband and I. We walked out on the porch and had two teenage girls at 10 pm at night, screaming profanity at us, ON OUR PROPERTY.  Once my husband stepped off the porch they ran like the girls they are, and then told all their friends they beat up my kids.  

Maybe the problem isn't about race or George Zimmerman's gun, maybe it's that kids have no respect, think they are invincible and think violence solves problems.  Maybe we should use this moment in time to start teaching our kids differently.

Confessions of an Independent Turned Libertarian

How many people reading this truly remember September 11, 2001?  Do you remember exactly how you felt, or has the passage of time muted those feelings?

My daughter said this past year, on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, that really, her class was the last one that truly remembers anything about that day.  She may be right, but even then, I think most of us have forgotten so much.  Especially those of us who weren't in New York City, Shanksville, or Washington D.C.  

We were scared, in a way I don't think the American public has been scared since Pearl Harbor or the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Pearl Harbor was our entry to World War II.  The Cuban Missile Crisis gave stronger legs to the Cold War and also to our involvement in Vietnam.  9/11 gave us the ongoing war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act.  

If you look at the numbers, at the time, for the approval of the Patriot Act, they were high.  People wanted to be safe.  While there were lone detractors, most Americans were willing to sacrifice a little in the name of safety.  Of course, in all honesty, the Patriot Act, as it exists now, is far worse than it was in the first days of its passage, but that's the way government works.  We were scared, and we consented to a reduction in freedom for safety.

Today, we are bowing under the burden of multiple government scandals, the biggest one being the revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA), is monitoring the phone records of Verizon customers, and monitoring the internet actions of members of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and even Facebook.  It seems the places we spend the most time, the government has decided concerns of our National Security.  Who we talk to, when we talk to them, where we are calling them from, how long we talk to them, what we share on facebook, what we search for on the internet via search engines.  It's crazy, right?  

There were voices crying in the wilderness that this would happen, way back when the Patriot Act was first passed, but most people brushed those voices aside.

I was one of those people who brushed aside the warnings, and I'm here to confess.  I was wrong.  Whether or not the this monstrous intrusiveness was initiated under the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration, I was wrong.  Even if the original intent of the Patriot Act was only to track the activities of those suspected of terrorism, I was wrong.  With the exponential growth of the Government, year after year, Administration after Administration, it was foolish for anyone to believe that we wouldn't eventually come to this point.  Power corrupts, you know.  I was scared, and I wasn't thinking long term or down the road.  I was thinking only that my world had changed dramatically, in just a few hours, and my children would be forced to grow up in this new world, which was far more frightening than the old world.  I was wrong.

What puzzles me, is that the voices that were so clear, those voices in the wilderness back in the aftermath of 9/11, many of those voices are notoriously silent.  Some are even defending this policy, now, when under a different President, they were screaming bloody murder.  I've started to think many of those voices were simply partisan voices, trying to undermine one administration.   Especially those voices going on during the election of 2004. Where are they now? 

I was wrong.  The overreaching power grab by the Bush Administration, backed by a bipartisan majority of the Congress and Senate was wrong.  And if it was so wrong back then, it's even more wrong today.  Anyone who decried that action nine years ago, but is silent today, is the worst kind of hypocrite.  The actions didn't get better, they got worse, as is almost always the case when the government seizes control of something new.  If it was bad then, if it was a civil liberties violation then, it is even more so now.  

I realized a few months ago, that I never quite understood Patrick Henry's speech on the floor of Congress.  I never quite understood what he meant.  If I had, I would have been less supportive of the Patriot Act, and more supportive of the voices in the wilderness, now gone silent.  "Give me liberty or give me death."

I'd rather face the barrel of a gun, than face the erosion of my freedom.  That's what Mr. Henry meant, and that's what, in our fear, in our life altering moment, that's what we forgot.

Do you remember how you felt on September 11?  I do, and it doesn't change that I was wrong.  

What Do We Know About Benghazi

I'm sure a lot of my more conservative friends will  take issue with what I'm about to write, but I've always been more interested in truth than in appeasing someone.

I watched portions of the most recent Benghazi hearings. Several news organizations revealed the trail of emails that led to the final talking points released on the Benghazi hearings.  I think we can safely assume at this point, that the President isn't the one who ordered the talking points changed.  Whether or not he knew about it, whether or not he deliberately lied, are questions left for another day.  The orchestration of the lie, however, can be laid directly at the feet of the State Department.  Simply put, emails reveal that the State Dept. had issues with the the talking points, because they feared what Congress may say or do if it became known that we were well aware there was terrorist activity, and it was prevalent, in Benghazi.  One of the emails came right out and said it.  So, for political protection and coverage, whole swaths of the talking points were removed, and the first ambassador's death in 30 years was attributed to a non-existent protest related to an obscure video.  We know this now, along with knowing the repeated requests for additional security were denied.  We also know that the Benghazi Consulate was kept open, because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton felt that it would show goodwill to the Libyans.

The fault for the coverup lies directly at the feet of a State Department, who realized that the ugly truth about terrorism in Libya was about to come to light. It wouldn't do for the narrative of the administration, that Osama bin Laden was dead and Al-Qaeda was on the run, to be blown to bits by an obvious terrorist attack.  Nor would it do for the American Public to realize that the threat from terrorists was well known, and had caused other foreign entities and charitable organizations to pull out and go home.

it appears that Susan Rice was never briefed on the truth, turning her into a scapegoat for a false narrative.  We don't have any idea what the President knew and when he knew it, since he isn't saying, and frankly, it appears he gets his information from the news just like the rest of us.  Possibly, had he decided to preside over the ongoing tragedy in Benghazi on 9/11, instead of going to bed, he might have known more.  He is responsible for shirking his duty in favor of sleep.  He is responsible for not keeping a reign on the people who work for him (see..IRS, DOJ and HHS). But in the end, the responsibility for the outrageous lie told to the American people lies at the feet of the State Department, in a sweeping implementation of CYA.

My question now is...who's getting the axe for it?

Thoughts on Dr. Gosnell and Abortion

If you've been living anywhere outside of the Philadelphia area, odds are you know little or nothing about the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell that's been taking place the last few months.  You may not even realize that he was arrested in 2010, and that a horrific report by the Grand Jury was released in January 2011.

Yesterday he was convicted on three counts of first degree murder in the deaths of 3 babies, who were born alive in his Philadelphia abortion clinic.  He snapped their spinal cords with scissors.  According to testimony, he did this to hundreds of babies, because it was easier to deliver them and kill them afterwards.  

Late term abortions are difficult and dangerous, despite what the Pro-Choice movement would have you believe.  After suffering several lawsuits for malpractice, which he settled out of court for around 1.7 million dollars, Dr. Gosnell decided it was more profitable just to kill babies after they were born.  No chance of puncturing a uterus or damaging internal organs with sharp instruments.

The pictures were horrific.  It was obvious these were human beings, not blobs of tissue.  He had jars holding the severed feet of babies.  Fetal remains were stored in refrigerators with lunches of employees.

Numerous complaints were filed with the PA Department of Health, all of which went without investigation (for political reasons), until the FBI initiated a sting operation due to Dr. Gosnell's side business:  Selling prescriptions for controlled narcotics.  

The press gallery remained empty for much of the trial, as newspapers found Jody Arias to be a more national news story.  One reporter went so far as to say that Dr. Gosnell was a local story, and she didn't cover local stories without policy implications.  One perpetual college student's whiny hissy fit about how she was going bankrupt over her birth control pills was a national story.  An abortion doctor who butchered women and babies alike, nothing to see here...move on.  The press was eventually shamed into covering the story by Kirsten Powers, who was brave enough to say what most of us in the Philadelphia area were already thinking.  This story is a political football, and it's damaging to the wrong side of said ball.  If an abortion doctor is murdered, that's national news.  But we can't speak of the horrors going on in an abortion clinic, by a man who was one of the forefathers of the abortion rights movement. (See: Mother's Day Massacre.)

The story boils down to a few points.  A man, who was not a board certified OBGYN made millions (about 2 million a year), performing abortions.  Originally he did most of those within the boundaries of Pennsylvania law, until too many women were suffering complications.  He then turned to shady practices like selling prescriptions for narcotics, and performing illegal late term abortions in the middle of the night.  He made around 15,000 dollars a day.  He used untrained workers.  Complaints about his practices were unheeded, when Governor Tom Ridge and his administration decided to stop inspecting abortion clinics in the state.  Their reasoning was that too many violations were being found, and if clinics were shut down, it would restrict a woman's access to abortion.  Complaint after complaint went unheeded, or was shuffled away with the same attitude as the press:  Nothing to see here, move along.  In the end, Dr. Gosnell is likely to have killed hundreds of babies born alive, moving, one even swimming in a toilet.  He was complicit in the deaths of two women that we know of, and who knows how many more we don't know about.  And all of this because abortion is a political football too hot to touch.

Technology is the reason the press finally covered the trial, or at least made a half-hearted attempt to cover the trial.  It was a picture of the empty press gallery, tweeted by a Bucks County journalist, that got the ball rolling.  It was blogs on the internet by conservatives and Kirsten Powers that pushed the ball further down the road.  Technology is so prevalent that the presiding judge in the case banned reporters from using any electronic devices during the reading of the verdict.

And yet, as pictures were presented, showing fully developed human beings, we have removed that technology from playing any roll in the future of the abortion debate.  

When Roe vs. Wade was decided 40 years ago, we didn't have the technology to show what a baby looked like inside the womb.  It was easy to pass it off as a blob of tissue, as something sub-human at best.  Deciding when life actually begins, as a scientific matter, was next to impossible.  It's not anymore.  Now you can hear a clear heartbeat at 8 weeks.  4D ultrasound allows you to see all the moving parts.  Technology has advanced, but our national understanding of abortion has not.

The abortion rights advocates don't want mandatory  ultrasounds.  Maybe it's because those ultrasound images might show a confused single woman that she's not evacuating a blob of tissue.  They don't want to have to explain in detail what's going to happen, because maybe a confused hurting young girl would be horrified by the procedure.  People spouting about choice just don't want to know the facts.

The best way to test this theory, is to describe an abortion technique to an abortion rights supporter.  You will hear things such as "I don't want to know what it is", "you don't have to go into graphic detail", and my favorite "you are  trying to horrify me".  Okay.  

Abortion is horrific.  It is the killing of a human being.  The methods used are horrific.  Saline, which burns a baby alive.  Suction, which rips a baby into pieces and the removes those pieces one at a time from a mother's womb.  D&C, which is essentially cutting a baby into pieces and then removing them one at a time.  Chemical abortions, which induce violent labor that ends up crushing the baby during delivery.  A variation of the C-Section which cuts the umbilical cord in the womb, suffocating the baby.  And my favorite: Partial birth abortion. which involves the doctor grabbing the baby by the leg, pulling it out through the birth canal  up to the neck, stabbing it's skull with scissors and sucking out the brains.  And Amnesty International thinks lethal injection is inhumane.

This political football, which allowed a brutal butcher to operate unchecked since 1979 is something most people are not intimately acquainted with.  in the past few months, if you were lucky enough to get any news coverage on the trial, you got a birds eye view of the horrific, horrendous side of abortion. The one we don't talk about in polite company.  And while it's possible a majority of abortion clinics don't operate in this fashion, the outcome of legalized abortion was patently clear in this trial: a complete disregard for human life.

The defense of Kermit Gosnell didn't call a single witness.  People across the country who happened to be watching the most undercovered trial of the century, opined at why this was.  I will tell you why.  Simply put, Dr. Gosnell was killing babies outside the womb, that in places like New Mexico it is perfectly legal to kill inside the womb.  Think about that.  It is no more horrific to snap the spinal cord of baby outside the womb, than it is use forceps to dismember a baby inside the womb.  One is legal, one is not.  Yet, I can understand why the defense wouldn't call a witness.  Killing babies who aren't wanted, as long as we kill them before they are delivered by a parent who wants them, is the standard by which the abortion rights movement operates.  What Dr. Gosnell did was simply kill unwanted children.  The difference is a few inches.  

If you are horrified at what I wrote, good.  If you are horrified that I used graphic images, good.  You should be horrified.  The next time the words "it's a woman's right" pass through you lips, just remember... a few inches.  That's the difference between life and death for the most innocent in this world.  A few inches.  The difference between murder and a trumped up invented right to kill, is a few inches.  The difference between abortion and infanticide is a few inches.  Think about it.

Maybe It's the New Math...

I'm awake far too early on Saturday morning.  My oldest pet, Chewbacca, a typical dachshund, is in his twilight years.  I think he hurt his back again, because every once in a while he moves and lets out a yelp.  He woke me up.  So while I was sitting on the couch petting the little old man, I was thinking about Ed Schultz, President Obama, and the sky-is-falling crowd.

We've heard multiple claims over the last few weeks about how bad Sequestration is going to be.  I guess the President forgot about his interview with the Des Moines Register, back in October, where he said this:
So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place ... we're going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business. It will probably be messy. It won’t be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain.

That sounds like someone who is so very much upset with Sequestration, right?

So, in a remarkable about face, he's spent 3 weeks telling us that if the Republicans don't stop Sequestration, the sky is going to fall, meteors are going to kills us, the TSA will somehow become more incompetent than it already is, teachers will lose jobs, firefighters will lose jobs, and we will die in some terrorist attack because we can't protect our country.  Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but you get my point.

The sequester is an 85 Billion dollar cut.  It WAS proposed by the White House during the stand off of the 2011 Debt Ceiling increase.  Congress agreed to raise the Debt Ceiling if there were budget cuts that would stop the insane spending.  This was the White House's grand bargain.  Sequestration, which by the way, hits the DoD the hardest, was the end game.  If the bipartisan commission on Debt Reduction couldn't agree, and Congress couldn't come up with the same amount of money in cuts, this automatic cutting would occur.  Obviously, the commission failed.  Congress has proposed two bills to replace Sequestration, both of which have never even been allowed a table vote in the Democrat Controlled Senate.  And so, the President thought he would win.  Those evil Republicans would NEVER cut defense.  Except they were adamant that they would.  So the "world is going to end" scenario was the only option left.  The Campaigner in Chief took to the airwaves and the road to tell everyone how bad the end of the world would be, if the plan HE proposed, and which he hyped to the Des Moines Register, took effect.

85 Billion Dollars cut from a budget that has left us with trillion dollar deficits and an astronomical 16.6 trillion dollar debt.  85 Billion Dollars in cuts to a 3.5 trillion dollar budget.

And now we come to Ed Schultz, of MSNBC fame, one of the President's personal water carriers.  On his radio show (yeah, he has one, I was surprised too), he told a caller who was in favor of Sequestration that this amounted to one third of the federal budget.  I am not sure where Mr. Schultz learned math, but when did 85 billion equal one third of 3.5 trillion?  It's 2 percent, give or take.  In this hard economy how many of us have had to cut 2 percent of our budget?  For the average American that's what?  A night out once a month?  

So, Democrats are basically telling us the world is going to end over the equivalent of a night out.  I know 85 Billion dollars is a lot of money, it's just not that much of a 3.5 trillion  dollar budget.  

We spent 1 million dollars on a mechanical squirrel last year.  We spent $100,000 on training for the zombie apocalypse.  We dumped billions of dollars into green energy companies that went bankrupt, because the average Joe can't afford solar panels.  Hollywood gets 3.5 billion dollars a year in federal, state and local tax breaks.  Federal tax breaks are also extended to the poor members of the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA.  Line by line the federal budget, and I'm guessing any first year Economic student could find 85 Billion dollars that doesn't include releasing criminal illegal immigrants, refusing to deploy an aircraft carrier, or somehow results in the layoffs of 70,000 teachers.  Those things were done, because they would have the most effect on the citizenry of the U.S.  We would see them and think "bad".  They were not required by Sequestration.  They have to find the cuts, but it doesn't mandate down to the letter what has to be cut.

Let me help you out here.  Instead of zombie apocalypse training, pay a firefighter.  Instead of firing a teacher, layoff some paper pusher in Washington D.C.  Cut Head Start since it's been proven through various studies that preschool/kindergarten has no discernible benefit after the second grade.  Make Defense Contract bidding competitive, stop using it as election payoffs for Congressmen and Senators, and deploy the aircraft carrier.  See?  Not so hard.

Every Middle Class American has had to tighten their budget, most by more than 2 percent.  The government can do the same.  It will not end the world.  It will improve our fiscal outlook.  And everyone will live, unless of course, you prefer to become Greece 2.

Bob Costas, Half Time Preaching Segments, and the Narrative

Not too long ago, Kansas City Chiefs Player, Javon Belcher, shot his girlfriend, and then drove to the Chiefs practice facility and shot himself.  It was a breathtaking tragedy.  A 22 year-old woman was shot.  An amazing athlete is dead.  Everyone expected this would be discussed, at length during football Sunday and even Monday.  

What I didn't expect is that Bob Costas would use half time to expound upon the evils of guns, and use a pretty lame anti-gun column by Jason Whitlock to do it.

First, Mr. Whitlock is a sports writer.  He should stick to that.  Am I being unfair?  Maybe.  But one look at Keith Olbermann explains to you why sports guys should stick to sports.  Mr. Whitlock's column was hilarious, except it was also sad.  He believes that Kasandra Perkins and Javon Belcher would still be alive if we didn't have a gun culture.  He's welcome to believe what he wants, but his assertion fails the smell test when we simply look at O.J. Simpson.  No gun involved there.  Mr. Simpson's lack of a gun didn't stop him from brutally murdering two people.  Yet Mr. Whitlock proceeded to rail on the Chiefs organization, because he expected they wouldn't immediately start pushing for new gun control measures.  Not once in his column does he mention that Belcher had a history of an explosive temper and violence.  Not once does he mention the rash of head injuries, which  most recently contributed to the suicide of Junior Seau.  Not once does he bring up the culture of celebrity, which lifts up these normal human beings to some special status because they can throw a football, catch a football, and tackle other guys.  No, Mr. Whitlock's first impulse is to attack an inanimate object - the gun.  Mr. Whitlock will later go on to call the NRA the newest version of the KKK.   He had an agenda, and that's what he wrote about.

Then the rest of us were treated to Bob Costas preaching about it during halftime of a prime time football game.  He quoted Mr. Whitlock, while once again, never mentioning Belcher's aggressive history, history of head injuries (if there was one), or that celebrity culture.

Fast Forward to this past weekend.  A Dallas Cowboys player, Jerry Brown, is killed in one car accident, caused by his friend and teammate, Josh Brent.  Brent was legally intoxicated and is now facing manslaughter charges.  Mr. Whitlock and Mr. Costas are both notably absent from the discussion.

Where is the lecture on the evils of drinking in excess, to the point where you get in a car and kill another human being?  Where is the cry that alcohol, fast cars, and reckless driving are the newest versions of the KKK?  Where is the much needed lecture on the culture of celebrity that exposes these young men to alcohol and drugs with no thought before hand?  Heck, the NFL has a number players can call to get a cab to come pick them up if they get drunk, or high, or just don't feel well.  Nothing like looking the other way.

There was nothing.  Not a single thing, from these two popular sports commentators.  Two more people lost in the prime of their lives.  No Brent isn't dead, but he's likely going to end up in jail, and likely never going to see a football field as part of his chosen profession again.  All of it caused by one of the number one advertisers during televised football games - alcohol.

This is not to say that I am blaming alcohol.  Just like guns, alcohol is an inanimate object. So are cars that go fast.  It's the people, the ones making the choices, that cause these inanimate objects, to become dangerous killers.  

But there is one big difference.  I can't say whether Miss Perkins would be still be alive if Belcher hadn't had a gun.  If he was angry enough, if he was aggressive enough, I'm sure he could have found a kitchen knife, just like O.J. Simpson.  Or, i suppose he could have just beat her up.  Or  maybe nothing.  We will never know.  But I do know, if there had been no alcohol and no fast car, Jerry Brown would still be alive, and Josh Brent would still be playing football.  Even with knowing that, it doesn't give me the right to take those things away from Mr. Brent before hand, on the simple fact that he "might" drink and he "might" get in a car, and he "might" drive too fast, and he "might" kill someone.  Nor does anyone have the right to infringe on our second amendment rights, because someone might be crazy enough or evil enough to shoot someone else.  

I would venture to say, it is more likely that someone will get in a car drunk, and cause an accident, then it is likely that someone who lawfully owns a gun will shoot another human being out of anger or just plain crazy.

Yet, the voices who were crying for gun control, are practicing a telling silence on this latest tragedy.  Because bemoaning the evils of alcohol and fast cars, well, it just doesn't fit the narrative.