Greg Jayne, Week 3

Interesting column from Greg Jayne today: some misconceptions, but no more than many misconceptions held by the general public.

It certainly wasn't the uber-fringe-left screed of a Brancaccio or a Laird, but there was a tinge to it.

At the onset, let me say that's it's unrealistic to ever have total agreement with anyone: a complete break with the fringe left nutters by anyone working at the Lazy C that the rag caters to would likely result in Jayne having to contend with an IED on his car in this day and age.

The comments below this column were thoughtful and in many respects, fact-filled.  The usual leftist tards were out, although even their voices were relatively muted.

Too many stereo-types of the leftist variety were used (NO stereo-type should be used: they speak to a bias and any position should be backed with facts, even in a column of opinion) and they took away from the value of the piece.

When, for example, Jayne writes:

As for President Obama, he didn't speak about the Trayvon Martin case until a month after the killing — before Zimmerman had been arrested — and then again following Zimmerman's acquittal. His silence thus far doesn't mitigate the horrific nature of Lane's death, nor would his words.

I must disagree.

The "post-racial" president has a duty to speak to these issues: he had no trouble running his pie-hole after other race-based issues and killings... there is no reason for him to maintain his silence now in the face of racially motivated crime because the victim happens to be a lighter skin color.

"His words" are a responsibility of the office: he needs to make it clear that perhaps, MLK 3 was right when he said the "color of skin remains license to murder," only in this case, it's blacks murdering other blacks, (which the anti-American racist bigot in the White House never seems to have time to talk about)  or blacks murdering whites, which according to the White House mouthpiece de jour, they're completely unaware of.

Obama has been quick to shoot from the lip on race when he thinks it's to his political advantage.  But now the time has become long-since past for the president to confront some unpleasant.... nay, "inconvenient," truths about the nature of minority-based violence which results from democrat efforts to keep blacks on the plantation instead of inculcating us all with a sense of self-responsibility while eliminating the programing of "victimhood" as the excuse for failing to achieve.

My son is a first year law student at the University of Oregon.  He is also half-Asian.

He graduated from Ft. Vancouver with honors, he was a Cum Laude graduate of the University of Washington.

He has always been an excellent student.  His genetic make up has nothing to do with that.

So why is it that he's a law student and not a gang banger?

Are his top grades because he's a minority?  Or are they because he worked his ass off and refused to accept the idea that if he failed a test in school it was because of his Filipino genetics and not because he failed to study?

Blacks are killing each other at an alarming rate.  Obama doesn't care; Holder doesn't care; the NAACP doesn't care, the Congressional Black Caucus (A federally recognized racist organization... can you even begin to imagine a  Congressional WHITE Caucus?) doesn't care.  Rahm Emanual doesn't care, the media doesn't care... hell, blacks don't even care.

Now, those in the minority population cast a blind eye towards racially motivated killing when the targets are white.  Can you imagine if whites reacted the way blacks reacted to Trayvon martin's rightful death?

What would the reaction be if white political leaders knee-jerked the same kinds of racist responses to the murders of Shorty and Chris Lane that black leaders utilized to make bank off Trayvon?

THOSE are the harsh truths this president and these people need to confront and embrace.

People kill people because they kill people.  That they're poor does not make them murder: rich people murder as well as poor.

The likelihood of murder, however, increases as we move away from the societal model that precludes individual responsibility for our acts.

To teach someone that their actions are not their fault and they are not responsible for what they do, good or bad (You didn't build that...) is to ask fro these kinds of activities... these kinds of actions.

And, as a society, we excuse illegal conduct on a mass scale.  We excuse illegal aliens who break the law merely by being here.  It's not THEIR fault, you see.  They were all forced here at gun point, and forced to stay here because they'll be put on spaceships and carried out of the solar system if they try and go back.

Drug addicts are victims... because, hell's bells, they were FORCED to become addicts.  They had no idea that drugs were harmful when they started taking them.

Murderers murder because all too often, they spend a few years in prison and then they're out... in some cases, to do it again.

If you kill someone, you should forfeit your own life... quickly.  AND, every time.  Because what kind of message does it send about the value of life when the cost of taking one is chump change?

(And BTW, I would apply that to everyone, "murder" or no.  Kill someone with your car while drunk or high?  Then  you fry, for example)

Drunk drivers usually remain drunk drivers because we don't make the cost high enough to stop them... and people die.

Gun criminals remain gun criminals because we do not punish them enough for using guns illegally.

No, instead, we get  this:

Some leaders in Lane's homeland have criticized the gun culture of the United States, urging Australians to boycott our country. Some of that criticism is warranted; U.S. lawmakers' quick dismissal of expanded background checks for gun purchases earlier this year was indefensible.

"Expanded background checks" is code speak for punishing those of us who actually obey the law... an absurdity illustrated by this in the same paragraph:

On the other hand, the Oklahoma killers thought nothing of randomly shooting somebody in the back; it's unlikely that additional gun laws would have made them think twice.

Is this where I ask the question: if expanded background checks would make no difference... then why are advocating them?

We excuse and ignore crime in impoverished communities because they ARE impoverished.  We completely overlook contributing factors because of the increasing reliance on failing to hold the individual people accountable for their decisions.

We overlook the lack of responsibility of the parents, the decisions to become pregnant through irresponsibility, the knowledge that having a child out of wedlock typically results in hitting the social service jackpot of welfare equal in many cases to a $38,000 per year income... an incentive for many to get pregnant and then get addicted to free money.

We condemn absentee fathers and do nothing about mothers who force that absence.  We view the discarded fathers as biological cash machines... and mothers are not required to account for how the money the court orders removed is spent.

We fail to make visitation (God how I hate that word) as important as child support because there's no dollar sign attached; and the state, which gets between 9 and 13 cents for each dollar they collect in child support has no incentive to make sure Dad's see their kids.

Combine that with government efforts to limit parental authority in families where both parents are present, and further combine it with the inculcation of victim-hood in our children.... and you see what we get.

So when Greg closes with this:

All of which leaves us with nothing more than two innocent men who have been slain. There are no rational explanations, no easy solutions. And that's what makes it so difficult to write about.

I again take him to task: there ARE "rational explanations."   The "why" of it is relatively straight-forward.

There are no rational JUSTIFICATIONS, but those are two different things.

And the solutions?  The only thing that doesn't make them "easy" is the push back of the entitlement society where we shovel out cash as fast as possible to those who do nothing to earn it, all the while telling them that it's "not their fault," where the good of the country is shoved aside as our leaders force us to live in class warfare while they, generally, and Obama specifically, live like kings.

Requiring self-reliance on the part of our children would be a start.  Teaching them that if they fail to study and then fail to succeed in school, black, white Asian, Hispanic... well, you know what?

That's on you.

Implementing that attitude?

That's the part that isn't "easy."

We lack the will, the determination the guts that, at one time, made this country great.

Now?

Not so much.

If we as a nation resolve to fix this situation, then we can do so.

It won't be pleasant.  It won't be fun.  It will take years.  But it can be done.

Except... we lack the guts to do it.

And we will continue to suffer because of that.