NOT MY CORE VALUES

"Freedom has never needed our defense more than now. Almost everywhere you look, something has gone wrong. You feel it in your heart, you know it in your gut. Something has gone wrong. The core values we believe in, the things we care about most, are changing. Eroding. Our right to speak. Our right to gather. Our right to privacy. The freedom to work, and practice our religion, and raise and protect our families the way we see fit. Those aren't old values. They aren't new values. They are core freedoms, the core values that have always defined us as a nation. And we feel them -- we feel them -- slipping away." Wayne LaPierre at the NRA convention.

Yeah Wayne, things are slipping away. Some of them not fast enough. Some of them because your corporate masters shipped jobs overseas in a never ending quest to find the absolute cheapest labor they can exploit. And people do need the freedom to work. They also should be able to work in a clean environment and be paid a decent wage for doing it. No corporation should be able to pad their bottom line by paying their employees so little they need programs like food stamps and Medicaid to survive.

We have the right to question whether the fall out in pollution, environmental degradation and threats to health are worth it. No company should be allowed to strip the tops off mountains and dump the waste into creeks that feed local water supplies. We have the right to question the use of chemicals and limited fresh water to frack for oil and natural gas that’s going to end up on the international market. In case you haven’t noticed we do have a form of socialism in this country. Profits are privatized. The clean up costs get dumped in the tax payers laps. And you’re right Wayne. We’re sick and tired of it.

And I’ll give you a pass on the right to privacy since the allegations of government snooping came to light. But you know something. I can remember back to those bad old days after 9/11 when the Patriot Act was being debated, we found out about the court that issues FISA warrants, and very real concerns about data mining and public surveillance were raised. And we were basically told that if we didn’t have anything to hide there was nothing to worry about.

But since we were good ol’ apple pie eatin’, flag wavin’, pledge sayin’, church goin’ good Americans we never expected to find out that OUR information might be in a data base somewhere where just about anybody could get a look at it.

Wayne, oh Wayne. You are still free to say anything you damn well please. You can use the N word if you want to. You can call folks who favor some kind of sane gun laws cowards and traitors. I don’t know your opinions on gay marriage and I’m not going to waste my time looking for it, but you’re free to be against it and say so. But, here’s what’s yankin’ your chain. There are folks who don’t agree with you and thanks to the internet we’re more connected than ever. And we’re free to tell you that you are a bigoted, blithering idiot if we want to. And you know what. We are perfectly free to do it. Says so right there in your beloved constitution.

The right to gather. I’m not sure what you’re talking about. But, I’ll agree with you on this. The right to peacefully assemble is protected by the constitution. The first group that allowed themselves to be herded into a so called Free Speech Zone messed it up for the rest of us. But, you know something. I don’t see anti choice protestors treated that way. When the health care law was being debated and congressmen and women were forced to run the gauntlet I didn’t see those folks herded into free speech zones. Your convention is being held. Nobody’s stopping you.

I haven’t heard of any churches being closed, bombed or turned into military barracks. Haven’t heard of any pastors or preachers being shot, tortured, kicked out of the country or just plain disappearing. Far as I know, nobody is sitting outside our churches in unmarked cars checking out who is going in for services. What is happening is that the government isn’t interfering with the right to worship of those you don’t agree with. And that really sticks in your craw doesn’t it?

And I’ve been reading enough material from folks who survived being raised under a religious child rearing atmosphere that borders on abuse. Of kids being physically, emotionally, spiritually abused and being subjected to a so called education that borders on brainwashing while hiding the whole sorry, pestilential cesspool behind the “freedom of religion.” And yes the rest of us will support these survivors. We will ask questions. And we will try our damndest to SHUT YOU DOWN. If that’s your definition of raising your children the way you see fit, we parted company a long time ago.

And let’s finally be honest. This is isn’t about the right to buy guns. God knows there are enough guns out there already for almost every man, woman and child in the country. Too bad the companies have to keep selling to stay in business. And it seems that the only way they can keep the cash flowing is to try and scare the living hell out of us.