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The Middle Way

~ A journey between extremes

The Middle Way

Category Archives: Making Sense of Guns

Rigor Morals

06 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Conspiracies, Corruption, Death, First Amendment, Guns, Hate, Human, Indivisible, Making Sense of Guns, Moscow Mitch, News, Patriotism, Politics, Revolution, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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I published the following post on November 5, 2016. I thought I would republish it today.

It’s clear that I have been unsually quiet over the last couple of weeks leading up to this election. While everyone else is doubling down with only days to go, I’ve done the opposite.

I’m fried. Burnt out. Frazzled.

I tend to think through things to see their logical end. When it comes to this election there are really only two possible outcomes since no third party candidate is even within shouting distance of being able to pretend they have a chance. And so, as everyone in the world has noted, there is going to be a President Clinton or a President Trump. Except that’s not the two outcomes I have been thinking about…

If Donald Trump loses, his supporters have hinted, or just plain came out and stated, that they will revolt. And since many of these same people are also armed and more than willing to use their weapons on someone who isn’t American-looking enough for them (or just give them the beat down anyway, as has been happening more and more lately), there is no reason not to take this threat extremely seriously.

Of course, if Donald Trump wins the same people have also made it just as clear that they will take the results as a mandate to get to right to work cleaning up the country and ridding it of anyone who doesn’t look, act, or sound American enough for them.

In other words, the same crap is going to happen regardless of who wins or loses. We are virtually guaranteed of increased violence against certain people based on their looks, their faith, the way they talk, and even what they think.

And so, what I have been musing on is not the election so much as the results. The political pundits have been honing their ability to divide people over the last few decades. The idea has always been to identify the differences between “us and them” and amplify it until people feel that the choice is no longer just political, but existential as well. The resulting divide has already harmed families and friendships, and caused irrevocable damage at the cost of a swing vote or two. But because these political operatives live their lives in this cesspool of divisiveness, they’ve forgotten that everyday people don’t. As a result, voters don’t see things as “just politics” anymore. What was once a “get out the vote effort”, has now become a road map for lasting civil strife in America.

I started this blog with far more noble intentions than bashing on an orange fascist. I wanted to explore the similarities that we all have, deep down. I wanted to unify, not divide. Instead, I too followed the same tainted partisan schisms, in an effort to somehow keep hate at bay. Only, you can’t stop hate, you can really only increase understanding. Understanding leads to familiarity, and with familiarity comes caring and concern. Until we can finally recognize that we are all humans seeking the same basic needs (clean air and water, food, clothing and shelter, as well as safety and security), then we will listen to the political static. We will follow the hyperbolic narrations that are designed to turn our neighbors into enemies, and politicians into saviors.

Unless we are willing to cross the street and shake hands with our political opponents, we are most assuredly heading into a dark period of our history. It will really all hinge on how many kind acts we can perform for one another, regardless of politics. If we can’t do that, then the election itself is meaningless. Hate has already won.

The Bill Of Rights… sss (plural)

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Compassion, Corruption, Emotional Intelligence, First Amendment, Guns, Hate, Love, Making Sense of Guns, Open mind, Patriotism, Politics, Sameness, Trump-Hole

≈ 1 Comment

Hurray! for the day
when the NRA falls
and the rest of the lobbying swine

Amendment Two even
protects us from THEM
and the pockets of money they line

to scare you at home
is their main power point
as they scam-off and co-opt our rights

that amendment is ours
it’s as safe as the rest
they concoct all the dangers they fight

there weren’t liberal plants
to come for your guns
and that Q thing is frankly, bizarre

start using your brian
let go of your hate
the country we’re killing is ours

(for some more light reading, here is a link to an older post called “Some Thoughts On Guns”)

That Small Town Feeling

15 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Conspiracies, Democratic Socialism, Emotional Intelligence, Environment, First Amendment, Healthcare, Indivisible, Making Sense of Guns, Politics, Terrorism

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In America, there is a small town where things don’t work the way they do everywhere else. It’s a place that’s still small town America. Exactly the same small town America that politicians invoke during an election cycle when they are trying to convince people that they alone are somehow able to conserve the values many of our grandparents held dear.

In this place, everyone who is anyone was brought up in a good Christian home, raised on down-home rules pulled mostly from the Bible. But one value that’s sure to be upheld is the one that says that anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus into their lives, has to go to the back of the line here in America. And that this value is an essential part of the fabric of a nation founded on Christian values.

Modern scientific “theories” don’t just automatically get accepted and taught here. Especially not if they fly in the face of what we’ve been taught and know in our hearts to be a part of God’s plan for us. In this town there’s a saying, “Noah didn’t need no nanoparticles.”

Of course everyone here knows someone who’s been addicted to meth, has diabetes, or is missing a few teeth (This is America after all). But, that is no reason to scare people into letting some socialist weaken our national defense just for some free doctor’s appointments.

More than anything, the people of this town do their homework. They‘re not likely to sit idly by while an oppressive government schemes their freedom out from underneath them. Microwaves, contrails, chip implants, and 5G… you name it and they’ve fought for freedom from it.

Here the law matters. And not those little freedom-killing laws that get forced on you by some liberal activist judge, but honest-to-goodness tough laws. The type that are designed to punish people. This town is founded on the age-old knowledge that “might makes right”, as well as a couple of other things that rhyme with that.

And with that deep respect for the law, comes an even deeper respect for our Second Amendment. Every citizen of this town is advised to keep and bear arms to show how each one of us cares about the safety of our neighborhoods. We will always do what we have to to keep them safe, unlike ‘other’ types of neighborhoods.

Most of all this is a town that exists in direct proportion to the amount of payola each politician gets from silent sources when they publicly invoke its fabled existence. And, it is entirely populated with the faces of each and everyone person imagined by a voter who wished their vote who somehow transported them to this safe little island of individual liberties with a type of justice they can secretly get behind.

This is a town that too many American’s wish they lived in. And what’s worse, most of them are afraid to admit it to their own friends and family. How can we expect an enemies country to learn from this, when a huge portion of its citizens can’t even reconcile their own beliefs with way they hope to appear to others?

A Street Gang Mentality

22 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Coronavirus, Ego, Guns, Human, Making Sense of Guns, Revolution, Trump-Hole

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The Renaissance came after the Dark Ages because people had started to engage in critical thinking and using something that became known as the scientific method. The natural result was to grow away from the teachings of The Church at that time, because the results science was getting threatened the validity of the Church itself, the authenticity of its edicts, and its iron grip on power.

Now the United States has a leader who is in a position of power he neither earned, nor deserves. And like the church, he is so frightened of being wrong and losing power that he is willing to put countless lives at risk just in order to appear as if he isn’t wrong.

And so, here we are centuries later slowly sinking back into the same dark abyss of magical thinking, selfish prayer and quack ‘cure-all’ medicines. We are again leaving behind rational observation and thought as we bound head first into cults of personality and brand identity, as if they offer something more substantive than a street gang mentality and some Second Amendment bumper stickers.

The Red-Faced Man

18 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Fear, First Amendment, Making Sense of Guns, Mental Health, Middle Way, Patriotism, Revolution, Terrorism

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The little red-faced man yelled as he slid down the hill

He yelled, and he lied

He said it was just an act

Except when it wasn’t

Like when he uses the grief of the parents of the dead children

It’s not when he scares his followers into keeping weapons handy

Always hiding behind the word of the law, he sacrifices its spirit like a roach under his boot

And as he slides down the hill, his face gets redder and he gets more desperate

It gets worse…

16 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Conspiracies, Guns, Hate, Indivisible, Making Sense of Guns, Middle Way, Patriotism, Putin, Revolution, Trump-Hole

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Yes the president is a Russian stooge. Yes he just showed the whole world how much he loves smooching Putin’s ass today.

No one looks good with brown lipstick Donald.

Meanwhile, a real live Russian agent with solid ties to the Republican party and the NRA. was actually actually arrested in the United States on charges of being a witch.

“At the behest of a senior Russian government official, the woman, Mariia Butina, made connections through the National Rifle Association, religious organizations and the National Prayer Breakfast to try to steer the Republican Party toward more pro-Russia policies, court records show. Privately comparing herself to a Soviet Cold War propagandist, she worked to infiltrate American organizations and establish “back channel” lines of communication with American politicians.”
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/us/politics/trump-russia-indictment.html

Trump Pardons Oregon Ranchers

10 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Brain Droppings, Conspiracies, Guns, Making Sense of Guns, Middle Way, Patriotism, Politics, Revolution, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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You’ve got to hand it to Trump. He owns his partisan assholish pettiness.

Donald Trump LOVES Immigrants

07 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Brain Droppings, Conspiracies, Dingleberries, First Amendment, Guns, Human, Indivisible, Kids, Making Sense of Guns, Middle Way, Patriotism, Race, Revolution, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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President Douchebag

You’ve heard the phrase, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. It’s the empty logic that conservatives use to short circuit gun control arguments.

I say we use the same method for the immigration knuckleheads:

“Immigrant don’t take American jobs, they’re hired by American business owners!”

Right, Donald?

— • — • — • — • — • —

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago asks to hire 61 additional foreign workers using visa program — abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trumps-mar-lago-asks-hire-61-additional-foreign/story

America, as I have known it

08 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Brain Droppings, Compassion, Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Fear, First Amendment, Guns, Hate, Human, Indivisible, Islam, Kids, Love, Making Sense of Guns, Middle Way, Open mind, Patriotism, Politics, Race, Revolution, Spirituality, Terrorism, Trump-Hole, Women

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Being an American does not mean you should or shouldn’t possess a gun, but we should respect each other’s right to choose either. It’s a gun, it’s designed to kill people. You should be glad not everyone wants to do that.

Being an American does not depend on where you were born. We are all a mix, and we always have been. No one likes to be the last one picked for a team, so don’t be a jerk.

Being an American does not mean you need to speak a particular dialect, and we have never had an official language. Don’t be so self-centered, you look and sound different to other people too.

Being an American does not mean we must obey a particular religion or God, but we sure do know enough to keep them all out of our laws. If everyone doesn’t believe in something, then there’s no way you can rule with it. Ignoring this always leads to uprisings.

Being an American means you don’t need to know the words to our national anthem, or even to stand up during it. There’s people who think you should, and others who think you shouldn’t. The wonderful thing about freedom is when you get to exercise it.

Being an American does not mean you have to submit to an arranged marriage, or any marriage for that matter. And if you do want to marry someone else, we are finally beginning to realize that it’s no one’s business who you fall in love with. No matter how closed-minded people can be, no one like’s to be told what to do.

Being an American does not mean you have to fit in one of the predetermined parties that we group people by in politics. In fact, most of us rarely like everything that comes bundled up by a single political group. It’s almost as if people are actually different. That’s a good thing.

Being an American does not mean you have to like your president. In fact, we have always believed that a peaceful protest to can help right the wrongs we sometimes make. America has always tried to assure that the minority opinion gets heard. And when it doesn’t, it is our right to engage in constructive dissent to see that it does.

Being an American means that we recognize the world is bigger than us, most people are different from us, nothing is forever, a majority does not equal harmony, we don’t like bullies and monarchs, and we prefer to change our public servants often.

Being an American means that we take the good with the bad, and strive to be better next time. It means that you shouldn’t insult others for protesting during an anthem, especially if you can’t remember the words to our other national ballads.

Being an American means that we do believe, we do care, and we are united. But what we care about, what we believe in, and what we unite over, is different for each of us.

We are strong because we are different. We are special because we are equal. The most aggressive are the most afraid. And what looks like the end always brings a new beginning.

Too much to write about…

07 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Conspiracies, Dingleberries, First Amendment, Indivisible, Making Sense of Guns, Middle Way, Patriotism, Politics, Revolution, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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The President doesn’t know the words to God Bless America.

He accused Canada of being a national security threat, backing it up with accusations that they torched the White House.

The State Department used D-Day invasion as a way of emphasizing our long-standing alliance with Germany.

The EPA administrator has accrued so many scandals that he has single-handedly taken much of the press attention off the White House.

In an effort to have a more inclusive White House, attempted murderers and spousal abusers can now get a high level security clearance.

Known Russian moles are invited directly into the Oval Office, while FBI agents investigating espionage, are labeled as spies.

Nitwit excludes football players, for taking a knee.

Oh, and if you are LGBTQ, you are not allowed to have dessert at your own legal wedding.

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