29 March 2012

congressman rodney alexander "live telephone town hall meeting" 26 march 2012

around 6:30 pm cdt on monday, 26 march 2012, we received another phone call from congressman rodney alexander.

fortunately, his office has -- at least this time, modified their caller id, call display information so that when "congressman rod" with an area code 318 number popped up on our caller id display, we pretty much knew that the call was either another one of his "live telephone town hall meetings" (we prefer the phrase telephonic town hall) or a political robo call, either one potentially blog-worthy. so we switched on our recording device.

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link to audio download page
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one question that piqued our interest is around the 10:13 mark where the questioner from west monroe, la., wanted to know congressman alexander's stance on semi-automatic firearms and that one of his "real concerns is if obama is reelected, he's gonna do his darnedest to get those away from us."

congressman alexander said that he believes in the 2nd amendment and that he has "automatic firearms" in his house -- "and dont need to do anything to restrict it."

the interesting part is where the congressman says that:
"i even read an article today, not sure where it came from, i need to go back and check and see, that indicated that perhaps there is a very wealthy individual in the nation that is buying some of the firearms companies with the sole purpose of cutting back and restricting sales to individuals.

just limit the sales of the firearms companies to the government, police force or the military, so forth.

i dont know whether there is any validity to that or not -- but we do know that there are people out there including the administration that would like to see fewer firearms available to law-abiding citizens and i think it's clear that our forefathers and the founding document -- the constitution, clearly indicated that they felt like one should always continue to have the right to bear arms.

so, i'm there. i've got my lifetime nra card in my wallet right now and wont do anything, will not vote for any measure that dilutes the strength of the second amendment."
while we continue to oppose any and all forms of gun control or bullet control and believe that the citizenry should and must have access to the same firepower that the military and police has (or else what's the point of being armed?) our view of the second amendment and the right wing gun nuts is evolving.

the following excerpt from a recent eric hufschmid essay pretty much sums up our thinking on the subject:
Conservatives are not "tough on crime"

The conservatives boast that they are honest people who are "tough on crime", but they are only tough on crimes that other people commit, especially people of other nations or races.

They are extremely lenient on the crimes that conservatives commit, such as financial fraud, pedophilia, price-fixing, and cheating on taxes.

Barney Frank was elected to Congress by liberals, so we cannot blame conservatives for that. However, an orphan boy testified in court that Frank was just one of many men in leadership positions who were raping orphan boys, but as far as I know, not one conservative proposed that the conservatives take their guns to Congress and arrest Barney Frank and all of the other pedophiles.

Why are the conservatives so tough on black people who smoke marijuana or use cocaine, but they don't do anything about the pedophiles in the government or the Catholic Church?

Incidentally, the issue of Barney Frank and pedophilia should be used as more evidence of how worthless it is to let citizens own guns.

There are millions of conservatives in America with guns, but when are they going to use them?

Crime is rampant in this nation, and corruption is everywhere in government, schools, businesses, and churches.

Larry Silverstein is still walking around freely in New York City.

When are the conservatives going to get together and use their guns to eliminate crime?

The answer is, never.

The conservatives are not interested in standing up to criminals, eliminating government corruption, or analyzing world events.

They want guns for defensive purposes only.

They are like a frightened animal that is hiding in the bushes.

They do not even have the courage to face Barney Frank.

Kay Griggs claimed that Henry Kissinger raped some American soldiers, but what do the conservatives do about that accusation? Nothing!
one instance in which we disagree with mr. hufschmid's analysis is that the reason american's do nothing about crime and especially corruption, is because they are psychologically disarmed.

this explains why americans have sat back for decades and accepted every unconstitutional, immoral, freedom killing law, rule, regulation and ordinance from the federal, state and local governments without so much as a whimper.

all this, despite being the most heavily armed and violent nation of people in the history of the world.

if that's not psychologically disarmed we dont know what is; we've said it before and we'll say it again: "america, land of the free and home of the brave," is just a meaningless marketing slogan.

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