FREE SPEECH AND OTHER INCONVENIENT FREEDOMS

It seems a number of people in this country are unhappy with the rules by which we live. They don’t like the fact that some people possess guns. They also don’t like the fact that people have the right to speak their minds on about any subject they wish. They want to change the rules. They want to change our Constitution.

Before we get into the requirements needed to change the Constitution, let us examine just what they are so unhappy about. 

The first amendment to the Constitution guarantees us the right of free speech. Of course there are some limits. For example, one cannot scream fire in a crowded theater unless there is a fire. Also, there are some prohibitions against libel and slander. A recent poll of millennials, also known as young individuals with no discernable usable skills or life experience, many of whom are still in school, shows a majority want to regulate and punish free speech to outlaw what they call “hate speech”. They do not necessarily define what hate speech is however. 

So, what is hate speech? If I express my opinion that the current fad of blaming every change in the weather on global warming is nonsense, is that hate speech? To one who has bought into the global warming religion, it is. If I own a bakery and have deeply held beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman, and refuse to bake a cake or decorate it with a nonstandard two groom or two brides topper, is that hate speech? Trust me, to some that is definitely hate speech. 

What if you eat a normal diet including meat and vegetables, could a vegetarian believe your expression of love for steak be considered hate speech? Worse yet, what if you own a meat packing plant? That could get ugly. 

Then there’s politics. To those on the left, any speech by one on the right is often considered hate speech. And, vice versa. Anything a leftie has to say is gibberish to me and most on my side of the aisle. Personally I don’t think of it as hate speech, just moronic speech. 

Living in a free country can get ugly sometimes. It means allowing people to think differently and speak differently. And, we live side by side. When we send our armies to war, we protect everybody’s rights, not just some. 

Our second amendment is crystal clear. We, the people have the right to keep and bear arms. We can use those guns to go hunting, go to the shooting range, keep by our bedside for home protection, and most importantly, protect ourselves from our own government. That was the primary reason our Founders put that in our Constitution. As I have said before, neither my guns nor my rights are for sale Beto, so your “brilliant idea” of a buyback ain’t gonna happen.

Those are the rules. Deal with it millennials. 

Now if you absolutely have to change anything, there is a remedy. Our founders built into the Constitution a way of changing it. It’s really simple. First your change must have approval of a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress. Then that proposal has to be sent out to be approved and ratified by three-fourths of the states through their State Legislatures. It’s all very simple. If you are successful it should take only a few years to pull this off. 

The reason all this is necessary is because our Founders knew future generations might want to change the rules dependent on which way the wind was blowing. There have been changes and amendments in our past and they are now the law. Allowing women to vote happened by Constitutional amendment. Some of these amendments have been very important to this country.

So, there you have it. You had best get busy though. By the time you get to the states for ratification, you might have grown up and had to face the reality of adulthood.

Ron Scarbro

SORRY, WRONG COUNTRY

What if I told you that I don’t think the Democrat candidate for President in 2020 is among the group who have declared themselves candidates. This bunch of clowns who are currently running are definitely a major disappointment to the Democrats as a whole. The so-called front runner is a news report or two away from complete embarrassment if not indictment. Number two is despised by the money interests in this country plus she is a proven liar who has cheated to get to where she is. Can you even imagine her sitting down with some of the thug dictators we have to deal with?  These two are followed by a hodgepodge of characters who will never be elected to anything in this country. Bernie has made it clear that he is the only true socialist and I believe him. Sorry, Bernie, wrong country. This is America and not Venezuela or any other third world country. We will never be a socialist country and fortunately for us all, you will never be the president of anything. 

Then you have a collection of true weirdos. One has declared that he will confiscate our guns and he won’t wait for a change in the Constitution as the law would require. Apparently the Second Amendment to the Constitution means nothing to him. He also plans to take away the church’s tax exemptions unless they come around to his way of thinking on homosexual marriage. Sorry Beto, again wrong country. Try some nice little communist state where dictators get away with that kind of crap. It won’t fly here.

The rest of them don’t even warrant comment. There’s a billionaire freak who plans to just buy the country and remake it to suit him, a loud mouth from New Jersey, some clown who plans to raid the treasury and give everybody money. And a few others. Not a qualified candidate among them.

There are some other Democrats out in the country who have come to the conclusion that it just might be their turn. Among them is the sorest loser I have ever seen. Hillary Clinton. She is telling the world that candidate Tulsi Gabbard is actually being groomed by Russia to run as a third party candidate in order to mess up the election for the Democrats. She leveled the same charge against Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in the 2016 election. Hillary says she was a Russian asset whose only job was to split the electorate to prevent Hillary from winning. Hillary, you lost because you were and are a terrible candidate. Go away. Bake some cookies. Drink some more chardonnay. Your constant whining and complaining is getting tiresome. You lost. Deal with it.

There are others for sure. Millionaire Michael Bloomberg, sometimes Republican, sometimes Democrat and sometimes Independent, is looking over the field. This might just be too tempting for him to ignore. After all, he has bought everything he has ever wanted, why not buy the job of President. 

It is a certainty that the national media will get behind whoever finally emerges as the Democrat candidate. As an obedient lap dog of the Democrat party, they will be for whoever they are told to be for. I hope this country gets a belly full of this nonsense soon. Gone are the days when we could rely on the media to be a truth seeker and a truth teller. We are left with agenda driven east coast left wingers who see themselves as the arbiters of American policy and politics. God help us. Again media, wrong country. 

Ron Scarbro

ELLEN SAID WHAT???

You no doubt have heard the latest dust up concerning the “Hollywood” crowd. Ellen Degeneris was seen at a football game sitting next to, gasp, former President George Bush and his wife. The pseudo universe in which she dwells went crazy. Social media has condemned Ellen as a turncoat. How could she sit next to this villain of the left wing? 

If you follow such things, Ellen is an avowed homosexual liberal. Her politics could not be further from the politics of George Bush. She definitely lives and works among a crowd of disloyal lefties who believe, because they are wealthy and “famous”, that their political opinion should be everybody’s opinion. Sorta like communism, one voice, one choice, one opinion. Dissenters should be destroyed. Alternate opinions should be silenced. My way or no way. 

Well, it now appears Ellen holds a different belief. She went on her show, not to defend herself but instead to use the opportunity to teach what tolerance is all about. She declared that it is okay to be nice to people even if you disagree with them politically. It’s okay to have friends from the other side. 

Well not according to her crowd. The so-called tolerant left is completely intolerant of anybody or anything that doesn’t toe the line of their beliefs. That makes you a deserter. A betrayer. If you do that, you can’t belong.

Let’s examine just who this community of Hollywood lefties is. They are, for the most, individuals who, through no effort or fault of their own, were born with good looks. Of course there are some exceptions, like Rob Reiner and Michael Moore for example. Their work, if you want to call it work, is to memorize someone else's lines and speak them. They don’t create, they only re-create. They live in a fantasy world of make believe. One day they can be a king, and the next, a cowboy. They can shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand. Wow, what heroes. In reality most of them have the personality of an open grave and you wouldn’t want them in your house. 

So, why do we pay any attention to this bunch of spoiled brats? Who cares what Leonardo Dicaprio thinks about anything? I know I don’t. The media, on the other hand, seems quite taken with “stars”. When one of them wants to say something, regardless of how stupid it may be, there will be a microphone in their face. Look at what Katy Perry said. Katy who? Listen to what Rob Reiner has to say about this or that. You mean “meathead”? No thanks. These are not the types I go to for political opinion. If they can make music, perhaps I’ll listen to that. I haven’t been to a movie in several years. They would have to pay me to see most of the movies of the past few years. That industry effectively deleted me from their customer base and I am truly okay with that.

I’m old enough to remember when no one knew the politics of the stars. They lived their lives and we lived ours. Who they supported or voted for was always their own business. I can also remember when they were loyal Americans who supported the efforts of this country. They got involved with war bond sales. Some even enlisted in the military to help fight for freedom. Today you have ugly, vulgar, Robert DeNiro. He should be ashamed of himself. Can you imagine what Clark Gable or Jimmy Stewart or perhaps John Wayne would think of the loud mouthed entertainers who seem to command so much attention now? Trust me, they would be as disgusted as we are. 

Ellen has some strange associates. With friends like those, one certainly doesn’t need any enemies. Thank you for speaking out Ellen. I have developed a whole new respect for you.

Ron Scarbro

MILESTONES AND MILLSTONES

This month marks another milestone in my personal life. I will celebrate my 79th birthday this month. Some may call such a birthday a millstone, not a milestone. Not me. I will celebrate that day. Turning 79 is an accomplishment for anybody. I can easily remember back when I was a child, I didn’t know very many 79-year-old people. The reason is simple, there weren’t that many. What few I did know were old and I mean old. So, what changed? How is it that today those people over 80 are among the fastest growing population in America if not the world?

I am sure there are many reasons but I would like to consider just a few. Take air conditioning for example. The ability to escape the oppressive heat of summer and the stress of that heat, especially at night, makes one’s life much easier. When I was a kid, if you wanted air conditioning, you had to go to the movie theater. That wasn’t all bad because many times they were showing Tarzan or the Lone Ranger. 

Not to be outdone as an extender of human life, consider heating. I set the thermostat to a comfortable temperature and magically my heater goes on or off to achieve that temperature with no effort on my part. Even more magically, my air conditioner and heater are on the same thermostat. I don’t have to chop wood or stoke a fire. I don’t have to breathe in smoke and ash to stay warm. I just push a button. 

Not that long ago, if you wanted to go somewhere, you either saddled up a horse or hitched up a wagon. Do you have any idea how many people left this earth prematurely because of rearing horses or runaway buggies? A ten-mile trip to the grocery store was an all day event. Today I can get in my car, get out on a paved highway, turn on my air conditioner, set my cruise control, turn on stereo music, relax in my power adjusted seat, and travel well over a mile every minute. If it rains, I turn on the windshield wipers. If it gets dark, I turn on the headlights. If I want, I can even talk on the phone with anybody in the world while I am traveling through space from my car. Imagine what people from a hundred years ago would think of that. 

Next on my list is food. Food poisoning killed many, many people in times past. Botulism and rancid meat were not uncommon. We have today the safest food in our history. With pressure canning, freezing, and in some cases chemical preservatives, we can keep food healthy and tasty for much longer than in the past. Who knows how many lives are saved or extended by that simple fact?

Finally, I want to consider modern medicine. I have a shoulder replacement, a knee replacement, hearing aids, some store-bought teeth, I sleep with a CPAP machine because of sleep apnea, and eyeglasses. I take medicine to control my cholesterol, blood pressure, prostate, and blood sugar. If I get a headache, I can take an aspirin. In simple words, my condition is almost exclusively the result of modern medicine. And for a certainty, I am grateful for it. 

So, yes. My 79th birthday will be a milestone. I will spend some of that day remembering so many of my friends and family who did not get there. I will rejoice in the knowledge that I knew them. But, I will go about my day looking forward to the next several milestones. In fact, I plan to die in my sleep some twenty or thirty years down the road. That will be yet another milestone.

Ron Scarbro

DEATH BY A THOUSAND PIN PRICKS

Donald Trump has been President for about three years. In those years he has accomplished more than any President in modern history. He has done it by putting into practice solid Republican principles and sound fiscal policy. Our country is in the best shape it has been in for years. Our economy is strong. Unemployment for every sector of the country is at historic lows. Our military is ready to take on any and all threats from any tin horn dictator anywhere. Times are indeed good.

The Democrats know all this. They know this makes Trump almost impossible to beat in 2020. They know, like you, that Democrat policies have been proven to be failures. So, if you are the Democrat party, what can you do? Becoming a Republican would be the smart answer, but I don’t think they are that smart. 

They instead devised a plan to first deny him the office and, failing that, make it so difficult to govern he would just quit. This all started well before the election. First they never believed he could beat their chosen queen to be, Hillary Clinton. Why they got on board with this perennial loser, I’ll never understand. But they did. Fortunately for this country Hillary was defeated. 

Never fear, the “deep state” said. We have insurance policies. And so it began. I call it death by a thousand pin pricks. With every Democrat failure, another accusation appears. It just never ends. One lie after another.

It is obvious that the Democrats don’t care that they are hurting this country with all the crap they are throwing at the fan. And, what they truly fail to comprehend, is that they will pay dearly for the harassment of this President. Like I said earlier, they are not very smart.

With Trump’s accomplishments they know they can’t win at the ballot box, so they intend to defeat him with scurrilous, unproven and unprovable accusations. It all reminds me of a nice picnic. You spread the tablecloth and put out the food only to find ants crawling onto your cloth and inviting themselves to your picnic. You squash the ants and go on about your business. The Democrats remind me of little crawling insects. They are nothing more than an irritant and they will also be squashed like the ants at the picnic. We, the American people, are not going to forget this attempted coup. 

I want readers of this essay to come away with no doubts as to where I stand. I am sick and tired of all the crap and harassment of our President, Donald J. Trump. He walked away from a billionaire’s lifestyle to help get this country back on track after the disaster of Barack Obama. And, in spite of all the resistance, interference, disloyalty, and lies perpetrated by the liberals, he has had tremendous accomplishment.

Nothing the Democrats have tried has worked. So, now they intend to impeach him. After all, they think if we can’t beat him legitimately, we’ll just kick him out of office. That, my friends, is what a coup is. 

Here is another one of those pesky little inconvenient truths, impeachment will also fail. Not only will it fail, but the Democrats will come away looking worse than ever as they are exposed for what they are. Won’t look very good on their collective resumes, wouldn’t you say?

I can’t be the only one in this country who feels this way. We are sick of it all. Congress, get to work on the real issues facing this country. Do the work you were hired to do. And this final thought for many in the Congress. You might want to touch up your own resumes. Many of you will be out of work after the next election. 

Ron Scarbro