First we had Al Gore running around on his book tour claiming that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are conspiring to slant the news towards the conservative Republican agenda. Here's Deborah Orin in yesterdays New York Post:

Indeed, a growing number of Dems now think - or hope - that Gore's behavior on his book tour has been so odd that maybe all he's trying to do is make outlandish statements that might sell books, and won't really run for president again.

How else, they ask, can anyone explain why Gore seems to have morphed into a weird combination of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senate Dem leader Tom Daschle - claiming there's a vast right-wing conspiracy, led by Rush Limbaugh, that's out to get him?

Unlike Daschle - who fretted that Rush could inspire physical attacks against Dems - Gore doesn't fear bodily harm. Instead, he told The New York Observer, he believes Limbaugh and the Fox News Channel (like The Post, part of News Corp.) are a "fifth column" somehow forcing mainstream media into "injecting" Republican views into the news.

In other words, New York Times executive editor Howell Raines gets his marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. Well, that's a novel theory.

And now here's Paul Krugman in todays New York Times:

This week Al Gore said the obvious. "The media is kind of weird these days on politics," he told The New York Observer, "and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party."

The reaction from most journalists in the "liberal media" was embarrassed silence. I don't quite understand why, but there are some things that you're not supposed to say, precisely because they're so clearly true.

And he also says:

For most of the last 50 years, public policy took it for granted that media bias was a potential problem. There were, after all, only three national networks, a limited number of radio licenses and only one or two newspapers in many cities. How could those who controlled major news outlets be deterred from misusing their position?

The answer was a combination of regulation and informal guidelines. The "fairness doctrine" forced broadcast media to give comparable representation to opposing points of view. Restrictions on ownership maintained a diversity of voices. And there was a general expectation that major news outlets would stay above the fray, distinguishing clearly between opinion and news reporting. The system didn't always work, but it did set some limits.

Over the past 15 years, however, much of that system has been dismantled. The fairness doctrine was abolished in 1987. Restrictions on ownership have been steadily loosened, and it seems likely that next year the Federal Communications Commission will abolish many of the restrictions that remain ã quite possibly even allowing major networks to buy each other. And the informal rule against blatantly partisan reporting has also gone away ã at least as long as you are partisan in the right direction.

Yes Paul, for so many years everyone got their news from ABC, CBS, and NBC. And the New York Times and the Washington Post. And those news sources have progressivly slanted things towards the left. Is there any doubt by anyone (other then hysterical liberals) that Ted Kopel, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, et al have some control over what is broadcast each night and that all of them are hard-core Democratic Liberals who demonstrate night after night that they have an agenda? And it doesn't favor conservatives or Republicans? It's always been that way. We just didn't realize it because there were no other broadcasts to compare it to.

Is there even a question anymore that the most quoted newspaper in the world, The New York Times, not only allows liberals to dominate the opinion pages but also allows liberal thought to cloud the actual reporting and indeed which stories actually make it into the paper?

The major syndicated news organizations, Reuters and AP, have become shills for the left. They can't even bring themselves to label terrorists as "terrorists."

Sure, in a perfect world all newscasters and reporters would deliver unbiased, un-slanted news; just the facts, Ma'am. But it isn't and it never was that way.

No, I'll tell you what's bugging these people so much: They're not the only games in town anymore. People have far more choices and are beginning to opt out of being spoon-fed a liberal agenda. I say beginning because for all of Krugman's -and Gore's- whining, the nightly network newscasts on ABC and CBS and NBC average 30 million viewers a night. The Fox newshour is lucky to crack a pawltry million. And even with all it's readers, The Wall Street Journal (the #1 paper in the U.S.) can't begin to reach the aggregate numbers achieved by such left-leaning papers as the New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, etc.

Democrats (and by definition then Liberals) were perfectly happy when all the news outlets favored their point of view. They laughed off accusations of a liberal-bias in the media. Well gang, there's a new sheriff in town and he's allowing all sorts of sources to be heard. Rush Limbaugh achieved his lofty ratings numbers (estimated to be 12 million) because no one else was speaking to the average American. Fox is gaining because no one else is presenting the other side of the news.

I don't know how many of you remember this but during the campaign season leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, NBC's Today Show would show the latest polls and campaign news and they would show a small photo of Al Gore, handsome and smiling. The picture they showed of G.W. Bush was one of him scowling and sneering. They ran with those pictures all Summer and through September and only finally changed Bush's image when folks like me complained.

Perhaps Krugman and Gore should move to one of those peace-loving Muslim countries. There, all dissenting voices are stifled and all TV and radio news is controlled by the state. All media follow the party-line. No, better to keep them around here; we need the comic-relief. But sorry guys, it's a two party system over here. And finally, some news outlets are starting to reflect that.

...Another of my favorite blogs is Eric Raymond's Armed And Dangerous, also linked to on my sidebar for some time now. Anyone who likes both guns and science fiction is a-okay in my book. And he's written some great commentary about SF such as this post. It reminded me of an article I'm in possession of.

You probably don't know this unless you're psychic but I published an SF fanzine called Exit when I was in junior-high. This was in the early seventies. I wrote to the artist Jack Gaughan and asked him to write an article for my fanzine. Astoundingly, he promptly sent me one. It's about the history of artwork in SF magazines. My fanzine only had a circulation of about a hundred so not many people have seen this. So I present it now to let many more enjoy it. It's quite long so I'm putting it onto its own page in a seperate window.

Why, here it is now! Enjoy!

...by pre-posting these a few hours early for tomorrow. Shows you the kind of Thanksgiving I'm having... Just another day here at the industrial-military complex known as Alphecca.com. Anyway, thanks for the kind mentions and links from two of my favorite blogs, The Bitch Girls and Tim Wilson at Timatollah. These are blogs you should be visiting everyday. Both of them are, of course, linked for all time in the side-bar.

And speaking of Tim Blair, which I wasn't, he mentions that Mark Steyn now has his own site. This is great news for fans such as me. Heck, his columns in the Chicago Sun-Times have been linked on my side-bar since day one. You should also visit Tim's blog everyday. I happen to like it a lot. And my dream is that one day he will put a link to Alphecca on his sidebar. He mentioned me once and it generated a thousand hits. And being a conservative gay gun-nut doesn't add me to too many blog-rolls. Indeed, with all the "de-linking" going on, I'm lucky if anyone links to me. That's not easy on an over-inflated ego like mine...

By the way, I've been kinda mushy the last couple of days. That always happens to me around major holidays. Trust me; it won't last. In a day or two I'll be back to my vicious, sarcastic vitriolic commentary. Guess I'll lose even more links...

God forbid I should just leave a simple Thanksgiving message. I have to drag everything out with yet another verbose essay and bore you all to tears. But we really do have a lot to be thankful for. America has it's faults, but just like the car you love and would never junk just because it has a flat-tire, so we cling to our beautiful freedom loving country and give thanks that while we might be assailed, we can never be defeated.

I know that I am blessed with a wonderful family. I wish I could be with them today but I am in spirit. I have terrific friends. I have a job I like, with a company I'm glad to work for. I have food, friends, comfort, security, and lastly, something that came lately; you wonderful folks. I started up this blog -Alphecca- just five weeks ago and so many of you have been kind enough to visit and read my rants and raves. Because in America, we have the gift of the 1st Amendment -- of free speach. And the internet allows me to practice that cherished gift. Here in America. I appreciate every single "hit" on my website (although I'm still trying to figure out who "jesus-penis" is...)

I could talk about how easy it is to stroll into a super-market and pick up a meal -- how here in America most of us (I wish it were all of us) can afford to pick up a meal. How, in so many countries, people are starving and their dictator-leaders don't care and don't help them. I could talk about (ok, write about) how lucky we are to live in a country that celebrates something like thanksgiving; so few countries do you know. So few have reason to.



But today, let us all just give thanks for what we have, and make a promise that in the future we will try harder to share that bounty with others. As you can see, Critter is waiting for his meal so I better go. Before I do, let me wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. May you celebrate with the ones you love and have fond memories of those who are no longer with you. If you have to travel, may you find the delays short, the trips pleasant and safe, and your waiting family and friends healthy and happy and... well, you get the idea.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. May God bless you and keep you. And may He bless this great experiment of ours, the United States of America.

Well, I also have my slanted opinions. I haven't dwelled on it much here at Alphecca because there's so much else I'm interested in. But the truth be told, I'm gay. It's not something I -one day- sat down and thought, "gee, how can I really get people to reject me and beat me up and hate me -- Oh! I know, I think I'll be gay from now on." And if you cornered me, preferably with a drink, and said, "look, what is it you people want?" I would probably say I just want to work where I want to and live where I want to and love who I want to. Sort of that "pursuit of happiness" thing.

And I must confess that I don't get all that worked up over gay marriage. Probably because there are still a lot of states in the union where we, I am not yet allowed just to be gay -- much less married. Louisianna comes to mind at the moment. So in recent years I've just sort of wished that gay activists would concentrate on getting our basic rights established; the right to live, work, and love who we want. After that we could go after other things like the right to marry. But the issue of gay marriage has been forced and I must take sides and frankly, I see nothing wrong with encouraging gays and lesbians to marry into stable relationships and enjoy all the benefits that straight people reap from the laws regarding marriage.

In today's National Review Online, Stanley Kurtz has an editorial describing this issue as the coming mother of all battles. I'm not going to critique it all because there are bloggers out there who can do it much better then me. Anyway, Kurtz believes:

This coming summer, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is likely to legalize gay marriage. If that happens, a convulsive national battle over gay marriage will break out ã right in the middle of the next presidential-election season. The ultimate outcome of our coming national culture war over gay marriage will either be legal gay marriage throughout the United States, or passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. There will be no middle ground.

Well, OK. Depends how the war is going I suppose. But if the issue does come to a head then it probably will be a big thing and he goes on to say it will definitely hurt the Democrats, and society must choose, and the foundation of marriage will crumble and on and on and on.

Here in Vermont, we've already been through it. When the state Supreme Court ordered Vermont to come up with a system that guaranteed gays and lesbians in committed relationships the same benefits that "straight people" enjoyed, Vermont came up with Civil Unions. One step short of calling it marriage but pretty much granting the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities that heterosexuals have. I touched on this a month ago when I said that while the issue of Civil Unions was red-hot in the 2000 Gubernatorial election, it had cooled considerably in 2002. The voters realized that the world did not stop spinning, the foundations of their marriages didn't crumble, and the Final Days were not upon us. In this just past election Civil Unions wasn't even on the radar screen. People went back to fretting about the issues they always worry about: Taxes, education, health-care, and for this year, the looming war with Iraq. Kurtz says:

The Gore's borrow this concept from a legal argument made by feminist Harvard law professor Martha Minow. Minow defended a woman who had been the lesbian partner of a woman who gave birth to a child through artificial insemination. The couple reared the child together, but broke up after two years, at which time the birth mother cut off visitation rights to her former partner. When that partner sued for visitation rights, Minow argued on her behalf that legal marriage and biological connection were less important to the definition of a family than emotional ties.

Wisely, the court ruled against Minow. To have done otherwise would have been a major step toward the elimination of any stable legal or social concept of marriage. Once legal marital status and biological connection can be set aside by a court on grounds of emotional connection, the notion of marriage itself is effectively mooted. At that point, anyone who claims emotional connection can gain court recognition as a de facto parent or marriage partner. Minow was careful to frame her notion of family as "any group of people" who care for each other. Obviously, under that definition, not only gay marriage, but polygamy and group marriage would gain de facto legal status.

I'm surprised he didn't bring up the usual argument that folks would be showing up at the alter with sheep. Anyway, besides demonstrating that those on the far right can be just as hysterical as those on the far left, he again reinforces the notion that somehow the concept of marriage will be moot because more people, gay people, will be able to partake of it. Look, the one part of his essay that is correct is that if this becomes THE BIG ISSUE then this country will have some very big discussions, nasty debates, and general unrest over the issue. But he's wrong that civilization will come to an end. He later argues that normal conception (man-woman copulation) will cease to be the norm and artificial insemination will be the way it's done for everyone in the future. I have a feeling that 95% of the population will disagree with that.

It's late, and I'm losing focus but let me just say that in the 2002 elections in Vermont -unlike the rest of the country- Democrats (or Republicans that are not hostile to Civil Unions such as Governor Elect Jim Douglas) gained seats and have assured that the issue will not be revisited for the next two years. Civil Unions are now just another part of life here. People got over it and moved on to real and pressing concerns.

In the final result, it all seems to boil down to the fact that all of us -straight and gay- are just looking for someone, we have a driving need to be with someone, to share life with, to have and hold through the night. To share our joys and sorrows with. Someone to laugh or argue with. To garden and travel with. To make a home with. Someone to love, who loves us.

God is so much smarter then us, bigger then us, wiser then us. And in a world filled with gangland teenagers shooting up their rivals or strapping on bombs and blowing up innocent lives, in a world where one-fifth of the world's population lives in abject poverty and thousands starve to death every single day or die of preventable diseases... Somehow I have to tell myself that God is waiting for and hoping we will solve genuinely terrible problems like these. I can't believe -if I'm to have any respect for a real God- that He gives even the slightest shrug of His mighty shoulders over something as inconsequential as that any two people have fallen in love and committed their lives to each other. In fact, I think it might be one of the few things left about us that still makes Him smile. God has no problem with people in love. His only problem is with people who hate.

What with the holiday and all, I'm going to cheat and post my weekly tally a few hours early. For newcomers, this is my weekly table of how much "debate" there really is on Yahoo's Gun Control Debate page listed under Full U.S. news. And let's face it, if you are calling something a debate then you usually invite both sides of the issue and give them equal time. So I read and tally the slant of the articles listed on this page at Yahoo and report the results here. I don't tally the archives, just the currently listed articles from news, editorials, feature articles, and audio. I rate the articles as Pro More gun-control or anti-gun, Pro 2nd Amendment or NOT more gun control, or neutral. Let's check out how much equal time both sides receive at this moment:

Yahoo Gun Control Debate Articles
Sample Date	Pro More Gun Control Or Anti-Gun	Not More Gun Control Or Is Pro 2nd Amendment	Neutral Articles
11/26/02	17	2	1
11/20/02	18	2	2
11/13/02	14	2	3
11/7/02	17	4	-
10/26/02	21	4	-

Call me "mad-cap" but I think I'm spotting a trend. Sort of a pattern in this alleged discussion is emerging. The left-coast liberals at Yahoo pick and choose which news stories to include on this page and -go ahead, you may gasp in astonishment- things seem to slant to the "guns are bad" side. Who'd have thunk-it!

In yesterday's New York Times Thomas Friedman has an editorial called, "Walling In, Walling Out," written with his usual expert style. He briefly compares the remnants of the Berlin wall, the "green wall" in Korea, and the wall being built between Israel and Palistine. Here's a brief quote:

What is so impressive about South Korea is that after several decades of being obsessed with the Korean Wall, it has refused to let itself be defined by it any longer. The South Koreans decided to focus on the sea that linked them to the world instead of the wall that divided them from the North. Putting all their energy into trade and exports has enabled South Korea to recover so effectively from the 1997 Asian economic crisis that it now has the world's fourth-largest foreign reserves ã an astounding feat.

And this is the real secret of South Korea's power. When it was obsessed with the wall and North Korea, it had little advantage over the North: South Korea had military rulers, and so did the North; South Korea had a huge standing army, and so did the North. There was a crude symmetry. But once the South became confident enough that it could win any war, and prosperous enough to allow democracy to flourish, there was no more balance. The whole Korean peninsula tilted its way, and much of the South's politics now revolves around preparing for reunification on its terms. It is symbolized by the new four-lane highway that runs from Seoul right up to the DMZ ã a dead end just waiting to be brought to life by the North's inevitable demise.

This is an impressive article and you should read the whole thing. My purpose in quoting this section of it is to point out just how failed communism and totalitarianism is. In order to be a successful dictator you have to expend all sorts of capital, energy, and attention just to keep your subjects under control and to squelch dissent. It's a full time, expensive job and leaves little left to actually take care of the people and feed them and educate them. And so in most countries such as North Korea, you have an oppressed, poverty stricken people, with a huge military and police force, and no growth as a society.

By now, most regular readers of Alphecca know I'm not the sort to just provide a link and a one-line comment. I am wordy and bellicose and I'm sorry if that turns many of you off. Anyway, Friedman's report reminded me of a speach President Bush gave at the beginning of the year in Dorasan, South Korea. Here is the exact quote that stuck in my mind:

...South Korea is more than a successful nation, it is an example to the world. When nations embrace freedom, they find economic and social progress. When nations accept the rules of the modern world, they find the benefits of the modern world. And when nations treat men and women with dignity, they find true greatness.

When satellites take pictures of the Korean Peninsula at night, the South is awash in light. The North is almost completely dark. Kim Dae-jung has put forward a vision that can illuminate the whole pininsula. We want all the Koreans to live in the light.

Amen. Would that all the leaders and people of the oppressed countries of the world just pause and take a look around. And see what they are missing. The leaders -of course- will fear for losing their power and strangle-hold. The people will hopefully realize that they are missing out on so much that freedom and education and illumination of ideas have to offer.

What bothers me so much is that -to use the Muslim middle-eastern and African countries as an example- these human beings don't have to live the way they do, scratching out a thread-bare ration of existence amidst a world filled with abundance and hope and enlightenment. Most of the walls constraining them, shackling them, would tumble tomorrow if they only knew they just had to remove the first couple of stones. The rest of the wall would collapse under it's own weight.

Religion also represents a terrible wall. Everything that we find repulsive in fundamental Islam used to exist in Christianity and perhaps in Judaism. But that was a long time ago. Most (not all, as Robertson and Falwell prove every day) Christians and Jews have grown up. But most of the Islamic world hasn't. I really feel that Islam is sort of where Christianity was about two hundred years ago. They've become defensive to where the only response they know to the modern world and moderate ideas is to riot and strike out with as much force as possible to anyone or idea that threatens to bring that insulating wall down.

Which is too bad because all of the light is outside the wall, not inside where they (Muslims) huddle around their extreme interpretation of thousand year-old writings. Growing up is not easy under any circumstances and we on the outside of these walls should show some compassion and understanding of why it is that people in these countries cling to such ancient ideas -- it wasn't that long ago that our own ancestors also rebelled against anything that went cross-grain to our sacred texts. There are no easy answers and I'm certainly not smart enough to offer any new ones.

Look, the U.S. and all of the Western world must defend itself from the violence proferred by the extremists of the Middle East. I do think, computer-geek that I am, that the Internet is helping in a subtle way to expose these folks to a better way of life. Of course, it also exposes them to all of their worst fears about decadence in the modern world. But eventually, hopefully with the help of the idealism of their youth (especially in Iran) I believe they will finally join and reap the benefits of our world. All I can think of is the joyfull expressions on the faces of the Afghanistani people when we liberated them. The young women lining up to go to school for the first time in their lives. People dancing (to music!) in the streets and digging up the TV sets from their back-yards. The taste of freedom forming smiles on their lips.

It is very difficult to hate and kill when you are happy and laughing. That is what we can offer these people. We can offer to free their souls and imaginations and open up a universe of possibilities to them. It starts with removing just a few pebbles and stones from the wall.

I don't hunt. Please understand, I have absolutely nothing against it and in fact I consider it a terrific public service by those who do. There are way too many deer about and never mind what they do to crops and gardens, there are over two thousand car-deer collisions every year just in Vermont. Anything that helps reduce that is a-okay to my mind. And there are a lot -a whole lot- of people who depend on deer as an inexpensive food source to help feed their families.

I don't hunt because it requires far more effort then I am willing to put into almost anything. Those who know me are aware that I pretty much just lounge around the executive offices of Alphecca International, propped up by pillows, with one of my cats well trained to drop seedless grapes into my mouth.

And like most single, un-attached guys (that's a *hint*) I don't even like to cook. Even pouring milk over my Captain Crunch seems like such a bother. But enough about me... Oh, wait -- this is a blog. All right, more about me...

Seriously though, I do appreciate hunting, the bonding that takes place between family members and all, and the great American tradition it represents. I love reading the stories about it in Field And Stream magazine.

Anyway, there's a lovely story in today's Burlington Free Press by Erica Jacobson about a mother passing on the tradition of hunting to her daughter. Here's a quote:

Kim Drury remembers going deer hunting with her father at their Stowe farm when she was a girl.

He would stop to show her where deer had bedded down. She would scramble to keep up with his long strides. Then there were the little fires Kermit Spaulding would make in the woods so he could toast a banana sandwich for lunch.

Most of all, Spaulding taught a then-8-year-old Drury to appreciate the sport. "It's just great to be out and experience the woods," said Drury, now 41. "You know, the quietness and the excitement of the harvest. I think it's an important part of our real, grass-roots heritage."

Now Drury is passing that passion onto her 6-year-old daughter, Haley. When deer season opened last Saturday, the two headed into the woods on Stowe's Luce Hill. The excursion was hardly new for Haley -- she first went into the woods during hunting season when she was 7 months old, packed into a baby backpack swaddled in blaze orange.

But as Haley grows, Drury has started to see some promising signs. Haley finds deer tracks in the woods. She gets upset when either Drury or her husband, Ben, go hunting without her. And, she already knows several hunter safety tips and likes to trade them with her mother as they walk along.

"She likes to talk," Drury said. "That's OK for rabbit hunting and partridge hunting, but you have to be quiet for deer."

Go read the whole article. It's heart-warming and represents all that is right with rural living and with Vermont. All across the country, most states report that the number of hunting license taken out each year are dwindling. This is a shame and I hope stories like this encourage more people to NOT give up the sport of hunting. This is one of the ways our forebears survived. It's an important heritage that needs to survive to remind all of us that for all of our pretenses, putting food on the table -and passing on traditions- is one of the strongest forces in our genetic make-up and in American (and human) history.

In the November 21 edition of the Christian Science Monitor there's an editorial by Jonathan Tepperman and Avi Gesser titled, "What if Bush were as eager to control guns as WMD?" WMD as in Weapons of Mass Destruction, as in what U.N. inspectors are looking for in Iraq. The authors draw a parallel between America's desire to control the possession of weapons in other countries (that threaten us) and the lack of desire to control weapons (guns) held by American citizens. You would think the difference between the situations would be obvious. You would think the authors should have a basic understanding of the role of the federal government and the rights of Americans. You would be wrong. Let's start with this quote:

Underlying the new Bush doctrine, however, lies a secondary premise that has received far less attention: The best way for the US to deter international conflicts is by ensuring America's own overwhelming power. By maintaining the country's awe-inspiring strength, Bush's logic runs, Washington can discourage anyone from competing with it. Predominant power will make America the new global sheriff, with an effective monopoly on military might.

Of course, whether it is actually possible to monopolize force internationally and dissuade military competition remains to be seen.

In any event, the Bush doctrine would make much more sense were it applied in the one place Washington has refused to consider it: at home.

After all, it is only within the borders of the US that the government can realistically corner the market on force. And the need for such a monopoly has never been greater than today, as the recent sniper attacks have made tragically clear.

Well. Well! I was always under the impression that one of the reasons for our Constitution and for The Bill Of Rights is so the federal government can't be an overwhelming, monopolizing force. The power is supposed to reside with the people. The government is answerable to the people and voters can drum them (elected officials) out of office if they don't like what they are doing.

Having the government be a monopolizing force means that only official representatives of the government -such as the police- would be able to possess firearms. The government would call all the shots (*sorry*) and we little people would have to stand at attention and salute and crowd into our pastures like so many sheep. Here's a parallel for you: That is the exact situation in Iraq! More on this in a moment but here's another quote:

Stanching the flow of firearms in America would be a crucial first step in this direction. And yet the Bush administration - though ready to go to war to disarm rogue nations - allows itself to be outgunned by rogue citizens in its own backyard.

The White House is demanding full weapons disclosure from Iraq, refusing to tolerate "any deception, denial or deceit, period," but it will not consider requiring similar information at home in the form of a national gun registration. By refusing to catalog the Americans who possess high-powered weapons and rejecting calls to limit gun ownership, Washington has impaired the ability of law-enforcement agencies to protect Americans in their own country.

America is not outgunned by rogue citizens. The vast majority of criminals using guns to commit crimes are caught and prosecuted. Period. We already have 20,000 gun laws on the books. Criminals are already forbidden from buying or owning firearms. Yet they do. Because, by their very nature, criminals are mutants who don't obey laws. But our justice system may grind slowly but it grinds just the same and catches up to most of these evil-doers eventually.

There is another benefit to having citizens posses firearms. A few years ago I enrolled in the first Citizen Academy given by the Vermont State Police. In discussing the right of Vermont citezens to possess and carry firearms, every single one of the police officers stated they were glad such a right existed. Vermont is a small state with a rural population. And there are less then 300 Staties. And over half of all Vermont towns have no police force or even a lone police officer. So patrolling and protecting those towns falls on the shoulders of the Vermont State Police.

They can't be everywhere and the reason they support Vermonters owning and carrying weapons is that the citizenry is the first line of their own defense. They said that! And remember, outside of a couple large cities, the average response time of the staties is about 22 minutes. A hell of a lot can happen in 22 minutes.

And look at what happens when you disarm the public. Does England come to mind as a country where armed criminals are running rampant? And since the government (that is, the police) of Great Britain now has a monopoly on firearms the little people can do nothing to defend themselves. Now England has cameras on every street corner. Hasn't helped! Indeed, the citizens have given up so much power that if some mutant invades their home, they aren't even allowed to put up a fight! The criminals have more rights then the people!

But getting back to the premise of the op-ed in question, the authors feel that the citezens should be powerless, should not be able to defend themselves. They believe that the police should be all powerful and answerable to no one. Fortunately -at least where I live- we have protections from that. The Vermont Constitution puts it quite simply in Article 5:

[Internal police] That the people of this state by their legal representatives, have the sole, inherent, and exclusive right of governing and regulating the internal police of the same.

And in Article 16:

[Right to bear arms; standing armies; military power subordinate to civil] That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State--and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.

What Tepperman and Gesser seem to forget is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The world is full of countries that forbid their subjects from owning firearms. Most of these countries are insufferably totalitarian, fascist states. Iraq and North Korea come to mind. England is quickly heading there! Already, with hate-speech laws, the English government is trying to control it's subjects' thoughts.

I used to consider the The Monitor an unbiased paper but they've run quite a few anti-gun, anti-2nd Amendment articles and editorials of late. One more quote from this op-ed:

If achieving peaceful order abroad requires establishing a de facto Pax Americana, why shouldn't Washington adopt the same approach at home?

The last time I looked, America is at peace with itself. We are a thriving nation, a democracy that prospers. Where the balance of power still lies with the people. And us ordinary folks are allowed to speak our minds (well, except on a college campus.) Comparing the United States to Iraq, and trying to draw parallels to it is ludicrous. I suggest the authors take a few basic classes in American Citizenship for a start. Trust me, they don't have classes like that, or any enumerated rights in Iraq. Indeed, they don't have any need for classes like that in Iraq. Nobody is trying to immigrate there.

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Just a quick note... You are in the dungeons of my archives. To view it all and see current stuff just click the link below-left.