Guns, Guns, Guns...

"The only thing to fear is fear itself."  - President Franklin D. Roosevelt

With each tragic shooting in America comes the obligatory debate:  Pro-Gun vs. No-Gun. The Pro-Gun advocates want better mental health efforts to keep guns out of the hands of “crazies.”  No-Gun people want more effective background checks and no-gun zones. (Those in the middle simply throw up their hands in frustration.) The debate inevitably dies out within days, if not weeks, of the shooting. It rears its head with the next incident, only to suffer the same fate…over and over – a thousand deaths. 

There is only one answer to gun violence in America:  Raise our children better. That is not so difficult as we think. Taking more time with your child is infinitely easier (and more fun) than taking guns off the streets. Engendering a child with a sense of discipline and respect is far more sensible than trying to determine who can be trusted with a gun, and who cannot. 

The presence of guns in our society reflects, more than anything, the presence of fear in our lives. When a policeman shoots an unarmed black man, the first words out of his mouth are, “I felt threatened.” Let’s just say, “We all feel threatened.”  Passing out guns will not help. The only thing that will dissipate this ever-more-threatening cloud over our lives is courage. 

It isn’t about background checks; neither is it about throwing up our hands in despair. It is about sacrifice you selfish, selfish adults. Sacrifice.

If grown-ups were not so busy celebrating themselves, and seeking to expand their sex lives with enlargements and Viagra, they would have plenty of time to spend with their children – time to instill in them a sense of responsibility, of purpose, and of being loved. Time like that comprise the main elements of self-confidence, which is the only antidote against fear.  

Political Correctness Takes Down the Vaunted Rangers

For the first time in the history of the legendary Army Rangers, it has opened its doors to women. Two of those women, Shaye Haver and Kristen Geist, have met the grueling challenge, and triumphed. The nation is impressed.

With this magnanimous gesture, the Army hopes to have satisfied this nation’s obsession with political correctness, which apparently is more important to Americans than is reality. What is also apparent is that Ranger school is not as “grueling” as most people, including yours truly, had imagined. Requirement to pass include being able to do 49 push-ups, 69 sit-ups, and 6 chin-ups. Any man who cannot achieve those modest numbers should not be allowed into the regular army, much less its special forces. 

Let’s face it: The elite Army Rangers, in seeking to be politically correct, merely exposed themselves to be not so “elite” after all.

If women in America must be allowed into all-male clubs to satisfy this nation’s zero tolerance for discrimination, should we not go all the way and ban all organizations that restrict participation based upon a person’s gender? 

There are women in the Women’s National Basketball Association who earn over $100,000 a year to play basketball. There are many men in America who are broke whom, nonetheless are talented enough to excel in a league that lets the boys play with the girls. Why not, in this land of opportunity, allow men to earn the same big bucks that their female counterparts make? The answer:  Because women and men, alike, would scream, “Don’t be ridiculous!” Opening the WNBA to men would render female participation insignificant. 

In other words, women are not big enough, strong enough, or fast enough to physically compete with men. That is why they need separate arenas. That is the honest answer sans politics. 

Defense Secretary, Ash Carter, proclaimed Haver and Geist “Trailblazers.” No, Ash, they are not. The “trail” you suggest they have supposedly “blazed” leads nowhere. This is not a swipe at women. It is a body shot at political correctness. 

If Haver and Geist want to be true trailblazers, why not spearhead a drive to form a female Ranger unit? Just as there is a WNBA and LPGA to ensure women can fully compete in the sport of their choice, instead of having to hang on to the men by their fingernails, let women build their own special forces – call them Amazon Forces, if you like. I wouldn’t mess with them. 

It is time we clamped down on political correctness before it clamps down on us. Already it is chipping away at the freedoms that have made this nation great. Freedom of speech is steadily being eroded. People are literally afraid to speak their minds, rendering many of us just plain phonies.

Political correctness is a human construct whose purpose is to thwart nature. Such manipulations create a slippery slope that demand logical human beings accept blatant contradictions for the sake of appearances.

Hell, this very essay is politically incorrect. Sue me.