skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Yesterday I read a CNN headline that said a CBS poll showed a majority of Americans favored the nude body scans and genital groping techniques that TSA is using. Within a CBS article about the poll "Poll: Do New TSA Airport Screens Go Too Far?" it was stated that "a new CBS News Poll released Monday found 81 percent of Americans think airports should use these new machines -- including a majority of both men and women, Americans of all age groups, and Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. Fifteen percent said airports should not use them."
So I looked at the polls. Not only did they show that BOTH CNN and CBS were lying, the polls have some glaring deficiencies in their design. The primary deficiency is a failure to ask if the participant actually intends to fly. If they do not, then their responses are similar to asking a well-fed American if it is morally right for starving Africans to eat an animal that is a member of an endangered species.
So here are the polls and their responses.
The CBS poll:
...and its response:
The CNN poll:
...and its response:
Obviously people who read CNN (liberals, mostly) feel differently than people who read CBS (just brain-dead sheeple, mostly).
Again, these polls (did you note CNN's disclaimer?) are silly if they do not include a breakdown of the numbers of people who actually intend to risk their lives on an airplane.
Don't fall for headlines, whether Drudge, CNN, Fox, or CBS. Read widely, take it with a spoonful of salt, and while you may have a strong dislike of Mormonism, Glenn Beck's admonition to stock up on a food cache still makes sense.
I'm going out to dig the rest of my potatoes. SEE! I USED AN "e". IN YOUR FACE, REPORTERS! POTATOE!! TOMATOE!! I'M STANDING WITH DAN QUAYLE!
It is wonderfully strange how the mind can leap from one thing to another faster than Superman. As I fossilize, my mind regurgitates memories in streams of the bygone, triggered by the most unlikely events.
This morning I rolled north on 21 to Montrose and at the I-77 merge it became evident that somebody had been practicing for the Darwin Award -- traffic was backed up across the Medina Road bridge. I made a quick decision to go around (knowing it was a gamble and that just patiently staying in line would eventually get me through) and exited westbound, then went north on Crystal Lake to Granger and over to Cleveland-Massilon.
Just north of the Shade Road intersection my memory was triggered by the Flower Hutch building; that used to be the site of an orchard. Then I remembered how the State Highway Patrol used to sit there to clock cars coming over the hill from the north. Then I remembered Dad driving us north to pick up the Turnpike on the way to Harrow.
The thought of the Turnpike triggered memories of other roads -- Medina Road, old Route 18, with its roller-coaster hills. Then the sudden recollection that it was only after the Turnpike opened in 1955 that we used Old 21.
Late 1950's, Dad taking us north in the old 1955 Chrysler -- the car I would learn to drive in, and which we drove back and forth from Patch Rubber Company when we worked there together. That old blue Chrysler, that ended it's career in the Demolition Derby at Barberton Speedway in 1969.
Trips to Harrow, stopping at the roadside park on Route 51 west of Elmore. The summer of 1959, when I stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Mary Miklovic and they took me to see the Brittania on it's Canadian cruise at the inauguration of the Saint Lawrence Seaway (I was intrigued by the fact that the masts had to be hinged so the yacht could pass under some of the bridges).
All triggered by the careless driving of The Unknown Motorist.
Ah, Dad. You left us 5 years ago today. Before you left, though, you made a lot of memories.
What is this plot by the British to control free speech in the United States? Undoubtedly the American media is too busy with election results to post the following:
White House Must Shut Down Hate Videos on You Tube
In it, we read that, "Baroness Neville-Jones, the security minister, called on President Barack Obama's administration to 'take down this hateful material' in cases where servers were based in the US. She said websites that 'incite cold-blooded murder' would 'categorically not be allowed in the UK'". As well, we read, "The Home Office confirmed yesterday that pressure was being put on the White House to remove the sermons. A spokesman for the US State Department would say only that it had 'significant legal authorities' to act 'where activities on the internet pose a clear threat to the public'".
Two hundred thirty some years ago 13 colonial legislatures and their armies rejected the things that would not be allowed in the UK.
Once upon a time, in a newly formed nation that styled itself The United States of America, the representatives of the people put forward a Constitution that was designed to prevent the government from having power over the people. One of the first things the young nation did was reinforce the chains on government by instituting a law that Congress -- the only authority in the United States which could legitimately pass rules for all the people of all the States -- "shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech …"
Freedom is at best an uncomfortable luxury. It requires the exercise of responsibility, both personal and communal. A free people must practice self control, and self denial, of desires to force others to view thoughts, expressions, and events in the same manner as does the majority. Personal freedom is the antithesis of democracy.
In the desire to be comfortable we, as a nation, have sunk to pitiful degradation of our liberties in that we commonly discuss what are viewed as necessary restrictions on speech. Congress has seen fit to put limits on political speech through "campaign finance reform", and on unpleasant -- perhaps humiliating or aggravating or frightening to the hearers -- speech through "regulation of hate speech". Let it be remembered that no man is free unless all are free; free to believe and express their beliefs freely no matter how offensive the expression.
The only legitimate limitation we have historically placed on the freedom of expression is the requirement that each person be responsible for his or her actions. In the Christian tradition, each individual makes the decision to carry out a good or an evil deed. "The Devil made me do it" is not a valid defense before the Judgement Seat of God, and was never held to be a valid defense by our Founding Fathers. The Paganization of America has brought us to the point where it is acceptable to think that someone or something else is responsible for a person's lack of self control.
If indeed a "spokesman for the US State Department would say only that it had 'significant legal authorities' to act 'where activities on the internet pose a clear threat to the public'", then that spokesman has committed treason against the Constitution of the United States by giving them "Aid and Comfort" (Article 4, Section 3) and needs to be punished by Congress as stated in that section. No such "significant legal authorities" exist in our Constitution.
The mutterings and screechings of Al Quaeda may be incitement to mayhem when weak-minded people listen to them. The British Members of Parliament, however, have every power under their own laws to cut off access to You Tube in Great Britain. That they are too cowardly to do so against the wishes of their constituencies is no reason for the government of the United States to violate its own charter of legitimacy.
