Profiting from Tragedy: Gabby Giffords and the rise of another self-serving "do good" foundation ...
It is my opinion that the minute your institutionalize and bureaucratize “do gooding,” it is less about doing good than promoting the personal ideology of the founders and converting tax-exempt funding into purchasing property, hiring staff and flying around living the “good life” while you are ostensibly doing good for others. Unfortunately, most of these foundations can not really “do good,” so they limit their activities to “raising awareness” or proposing government-enlarging prescriptions which are, in and of themselves, contradictory or nonsensical.
Perhaps an illustration of this phenomena can be seen in foundations using gun control as their driving issue …
The basic fact is that you cannot alter human nature …
- There will always be those self-serving people who use positions of strength to disadvantage the weak. Whether we are speaking about power, money and sex, you will find that each of these attributes are mutable into each other. Thus you can use money and sex to gain power. Sex to gain money and power. Power to gain money and sex.
- You cannot politically legislate morality because any legislation proposed, by definition, is self-serving of those in power. Whether to gain or maintain political power or to provide perks and privileges to special interests in return for quid pro quo benefits, almost all legislation is self-serving and not helpful to the general public. Absolute morality, as defined in some religious codes, can be reduced to the recognition or good and evil and right and wrong. It is not profitable for political entities to state the obvious and propose fewer and less complex laws that benefit general society.
- You cannot force criminals and crazies to adhere to a formal system of rules. The criminals, by definition, are rule-breakers for self-gain and the crazies do not recognize nor respect the law.
- You do not make a large population safer by disarming that population and making them prey to a smaller armed population. Not only is the intuitively true, but it also is the basic reason why the issue is crime control or mental health rather than gun control. In the absence of a gun, a knife, club, car, or some other means would be found to exert dominance or do evil.
Enter Gabby Giffords …
While her personal experience is tragic and her recovery efforts personally heroic, there is absolutely no logical reason why we should believe the ideological ranting of a progressive politician any more than we should believe any other politician.
While it may be admirable for Giffords to want to reduce gun violence and prevent another Gabby Giffords incident, you cannot do it by preaching falsehoods. At some point in time, Giffords and the rest of the self-serving politicians must realize that it was the crazy person with a gun that did the damage. It may have very well been the crazy person with the knife, baseball bat, explosives or simply a car crashing through a crowded school cross-walk or into a gasoline tanker.
Gabby Giffords Takes on NRA, Announces Push for Gun Control -- Injured congresswoman uses op-ed, Diane Sawyer appearance to take on NRA, fight for a curb on weapons.
Almost a month since the unimaginably tragic shooting in Newtown Connecticut and on the anniversary of the massacre that left her fighting for her own life, former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is stepping up with her own lobbying group that will counter the NRA and push for what she bills as common-sense gun control solutions to the epidemic of American gun violence.
With her husband, the astronaut Mark Kelley, Giffords will appear tonight on a prime-time interview with Diane Sawyer and co-wrote a frank op-ed in USA Today that had some harsh words for the gun lobby as representing a fringe position, while positioning the couple as responsible gun owners themselves:
Special interests purporting to represent gun owners but really advancing the interests of an ideological fringe have used big money and influence to cow Congress into submission. Rather than working to find the balance between our rights and the regulation of a dangerous product, these groups have cast simple protections for our communities as existential threats to individual liberties. Rather than conducting a dialogue, they threaten those who divert from their orthodoxy with political extinction.
As a result, we are more vulnerable to gun violence. Weapons designed for the battlefield have a home in our streets. Criminals and the mentally ill can easily purchase guns by avoiding background checks. Firearm accessories designed for killing at a high rate are legal and widely available. And gun owners are less responsible for the misuse of their weapons than they are for their automobiles.
Forget the boogeyman of big, bad government coming to dispossess you of your firearms. As a Western woman and a Persian Gulf War combat veteran who have exercised our Second Amendment rights, we don't want to take away your guns any more than we want to give up the two guns we have locked in a safe at home. What we do want is what the majority of NRA members and other Americans want: responsible changes in our laws to require responsible gun ownership and reduce gun violence.
We saw from the NRA leadership's defiant and unsympathetic response to the Newtown, Conn., massacre that winning even the most common-sense reforms will require a fight. But whether it has been in campaigns or in Congress, in combat or in space, fighting for what we believe in has always been what we do.
So how will these two, who position themselves as political moderates, take on the NRA? They want to use their position to raise a lot of money, basically, launching a lobbying group called Americans for Responsible Solutions. They write "Until now, the gun lobby's political contributions, advertising and lobbying have dwarfed spending from anti-gun violence groups. No longer."
Source: Gabby Giffords Takes on NRA, Announces Push for Gun Control | Alternet
Let us consider what she is saying …
“Special interests purporting to represent <fill in the blank> but really advancing the interests of an ideological fringe have used big money and influence to cow Congress into submission.” Couldn’t the very same thing be said about AARP, the progressive senior citizens’ lobby whose leadership went all in for Obamacare – in spite of the $716 billion in cuts to Medicare? In one instance Gabby Giffords gets it right – SPECIAL INTERESTS PURPORTING! The very essence of a self-serving foundation pushing their leadership’s ideology.
Giffords is telling a big lie. “As a result, we are more vulnerable to gun violence.” There is little or no proof that the leadership or the membership of the National Rifle Association makes America more vulnerable to gun violence. First, because the NRA cannot control the actions of criminals and the crazies. Second, because the NRA teaches gun familiarization and safety to both professional law enforcement and the general public. And, because the NRA does not condone mishandling of dangerous weapons.
Full disclosure: I am a life member of the NRA (Patron Level) and learned gun safety from my father (not a member) as well as an NRA-certified range-master/instructor. In all of my years in and around the NRA, I have never seen any tolerance for using firearms while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, nor have I seen anyone that would hesitate to call law enforcement to report a dangerous situation.
Another big Gifford’s lie: “Forget the boogeyman of big, bad government coming to dispossess you of your firearms.” One trip to California would set Giffords straight. State government has already come to dispossess you of your firearms and to retroactively criminalize your activities should you possess a “scary-looking” assault rifle.
The NRA was not unsympathetic nor defiant to the Newtown, Connecticut massacre. Unlike billionaire liberal Michael Bloomberg who didn’t wait for the children’s bodies to even cool off before he started pounding his liberal gun control (not crime control) ideology, the NRA said nothing out of respect for the families and to prevent inflaming the issue into liberal talking points on the nightly news.
If Giffords was honest …
If Giffords was honest, she would not be crusading against the NRA – but the politicians who crippled the mental health system in the United States. The liberal school systems that dispense psychoactive drugs like candy to keep normally rambunctious children (mostly boys) until they act like well-behaved little girls.
If Giffords was honest, she would not that a large portion of the crime occurs in progressive democrat-controlled urban area among the minorities and involves gangs and drugs. With innocent bystanders caught in the cross-fire. Perhaps we should disarm black inner city ghettoes to make them safe. No that won’t work: look at Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Harlem – all progressive liberal areas with strict gun control and burgeoning crime. Explain how disarming law-abiding citizens in these areas makes them safer – given the poor performance of law enforcement to clean up the gangs and the drugs.
And while we are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – why is no one saying anything about the gangs and the drugs supporting a large percentage of the unionized-political complex? From law enforcement, the judiciary, the defense attorneys, the social workers and all of the other government workers whose jobs require both drugs and crime. How many special interests are sucking on the political teat related to criminal activity?
Bottom line …
Giffords is parlaying her victimhood into another self-serving political game. She doesn’t really want the answers – because there is no answer to criminals and crazies who will use whatever means available to do their dastardly deeds.
If Obama and his fellow travelers were so damn concerned about the children killed in Sandy Hook, why hasn’t he gone after the minority gangs and druggies who are decimating the inner cities? Why hasn’t he flown our flag at half-mast for children killed in the inner cities? Why does he continue to push for disarming law-abiding Americans when he has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that law enforcement cannot protect you from criminals and crazies.
Answer: get rid of the corrupt politicians and lets start enforcing the laws on the books. No more liberal bullshit in treating perpetrators as victims and allowing people to plea down serious gun charges. No more letting gun-using criminals out on probation and parole.
Let’s not forget Jamiel Shaw …
If Barack Hussein Obama ever had a son, he would look not like the thuggish Treyvon Martin, but more like Jamiel Shaw Jr. – a standout athlete who was the 2007 MVP in the Southern League. Shot and killed as he walked home by an illegal alien gang member, Pedro Espinosa, who had been released from prison on a gun charge 36 hours before the shooting. Prosecutors said Espinoza, a member of the 18th Street gang, pegged Shaw as a rival gang member because he was wearing a red, Spider-Man backpack.
This is the case the democrats did not want to deal with: illegal aliens, gangs, and their deal with the gun issue. How could they defend a sanctuary city that demands that police not enforce immigration laws – even when the illegal aliens are known gang members. How did this piece of human garbage get out of jail – when he was being held on a gun charge. How fast did this illegal alien get a weapon within 36 hours – certainly not through the legal means that would have stopped a law-abiding citizen from acquiring a weapon.
It is time we send flowers to Gabby Giffords, wish her well – and tell her to STFU if she continues to lie about gun control to promote her progressive ideology. If she wants to address mental health issues and crime control, then I will support her actions.
-- steve
“Nullius in verba”-- take nobody's word for it!
"Acta non verba" -- actions not words
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”-- George Bernard Shaw
“Progressive, liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Democratic Socialist -- they are all COMMUNISTS.”
“The key to fighting the craziness of the progressives is to hold them responsible for their actions, not their intentions.” – OCS "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims... but accomplices” -- George Orwell “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." (The people gladly believe what they wish to.) ~Julius Caesar “Describing the problem is quite different from knowing the solution. Except in politics." ~ OCS