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My Thoughts On The #MuslimBan.

Trump is setting all kinds of precedents as a U.S. president.  Chiefly among those is the fact that for better or worse, he’s actually following through with all his campaign promises.  Nobody who obtains the U.S. presidency actually follows through with most of the empty promises they made in order to get there, let alone this early into their term.

Obama ran on a platform including things like: 1) overturning the Patriot Act 2) protecting whistle-blowers, and 3) closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.  None of these happened, and if anything, civil liberties have been compromised further via the bolstering or renewing of the polices he was supposedly against.  This isn’t meant to be an out-and-out attack on Obama, however.  He accomplished a lot of other things he said he would.  The point being, that candidates don’t always follow through on some of the bigger things they say they will.

Trump seems dead set on actually doing everything he said he would.  I guess nobody told him that politicians pander and lie, and that we tend to accept the fact that they regularly renege on their campaign promises.  You don’t actually need to do everything you said you would in order to get voters.

So far, he’s shot down the Trans-Pacific Partnership, committed to building a border wall (I’m still not convinced he’ll actually go through with this one), and imposed his #MuslimBan.  I don’t particularly agree with these last two accomplishments, nor do I see them solving any kind of problem, but regardless, he’s actually following through, which is mind-blowing to me on many levels.

This post is strictly about the #MuslimBan though, so that’s what I’m gonna type about for a hot minute.

To start things off, the #MuslimBan isn’t even an actual #MuslimBan.  Right from the outset, the name is a misnomer being unscrupulously pushed by people who should probably know better.  It is a temporary 90-day ban on citizens from seven individual countries from gaining entry to the United States, and a 120-day ban on refugees from those countries  One of those countries (Iraq) had previously been on a ban implemented by Barack Obama back in 2011, lasting for six months.  As you may have guessed, there wasn’t much, if any outrage when this transpired.  This is to be expected in our current age of egregious double-standards, I suppose.

Secondly, the #MuslimBan isn’t even an actual #MuslimBan.  The ban is essentially blocking roughly 200 million people from entering the United States for three months.  That is a large number of people for sure, but a fraction of the 1.6 billion Muslims who would be banned by a legitimate #MuslimBan.  You can be against the ban, but also be intellectual honest enough to not mislabel something merely for hyperbolic effect.

For instance, seven Muslim countries are included in the ban, but there are eleven Muslim countries that aren’t affected by the ban at all.  By “Muslim” countries, I’m referring to countries that are at least 85% Muslim, even though most of those are above 95% Muslim.  If this were an actual ban on all Muslims, at very least, there would be 18 countries on that list, and not just seven.  The fact that only seven are in the ban leads me to believe that they were selected based on some other legitimate criteria.  Perhaps they were deemed the biggest hotbeds for terrorism, or those with the most substantial ISIS presence.  Saudi Arabia would probably have ended up on the list under those criteria however.  Emperor Donald has businesses in Saudi Arabia, so perhaps we have a conflict of interest at work here as well.  The plot thickens.

Finally, the #MuslimBan isn’t even an actual #MuslimBan.  From what I gather via reading the actual order that was released, the ban is meant to either allow the vetting process to be slightly reworked, or to allow for more thorough background checks on individuals already in line to get visas to enter the U.S.  It’s hard to get a simplified, yet honest assessment of this order from most U.S. media outlets, who have become increasingly incapable of delivering non-biased, propaganda-free articles on the matter.

Regardless, the whole point of this was to demonstrate that with a middle-school kids’ level of research, one could have ascertained that the #MuslimBan was actually a country ban, and not a “muslim ban”.  Muslims from England, Nigeria, Chile, etc. aren’t part of the ban, after all.  Why exactly those seven countries were chosen, I’d be interested to find out, but reacting to these situations like a hysterical child instead of actually researching it helps nobody.  Most of social media is only able to react like hysterical children though, so perhaps this is too much to ask.

This is the Trump presidency though, so you’re going to have to brace yourselves, like someone riding shotgun in a car next to a driver who’s had a few too many drinks.  Hopefully it all turns out for the best, and you don’t die in a horrible fireball of a crash.  I can’t be too overly critical of anything that’s transpired thus far, but tomorrow is always a new day.

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How Did Trump Win The Presidency?

As you may have heard by now, Donald Trump is officially the 45th president of the United States.  He wasn’t my first choice, being that I’ve always voted third party, but I can honestly say that his win doesn’t surprise me in the least.

He was running against a corrupt, establishment, career politician, whose party had become so used to getting away with murder that they weren’t even trying to cover their tracks any more.

Between the countless WikiLeaks email revelations, the damning undercover videos released by the likes of James O’Keefe, and the sloppy reporting and blatant partisanship demonstrated by many “reputable” news organizations (CNN anyone?), anybody who was actually paying attention should have realized that the cards were grossly stacked in favor of Clinton from the outset.  Despite all this corruption being brought to light, the Democrats still felt entitled to a win due to their own rampant hubris.  When you go through life with as much self-righteous entitlement as many of them do, the possibly of failure never seems like an option. Perhaps this is why Hillary Clinton wasn’t ready to deliver a concession speech upon losing the presidency to Trump.  There was no way in her mind that she could possibly have lost with such an overwhelming advantage.

If Donald Trump had run against Bernie Sanders, perhaps he would have lost.  A large portion of the Democratic voter base wanted Bernie Sanders to be the presidential candidate.  He had an enormous groundswell of support that was inescapable on social media throughout the year.  Unfortunately what the voting public wanted and what the Democratic establishment wanted were two very different beasts.

The Democratic establishment wanted a career politician who already had his or her tendrils in every sector of the American political/financial sector, and Hillary was that candidate.  Bernie was a mere civil rights protestor who worked his way into politics to further his civil rights agenda.  The Clintons however, were both on track to be politicans since they were in their teens.  They have been a political power couple for 40 years, planning their every move around climbing the political ladder.  The Clintons both represent the very corruption that Bernie ran on a platform of purging from U.S. politics.  It’s quite ironic that the very corruption he rallied against, took him out of the running for president, and yet he refused to disavow them.

How exactly did Trump win though? For one, there was a huge discrepancy between the reality of whose corner Americans were in, and whose corner the media wanted you to believe Americans were in.  The media set Trump up as the bumbling buffoon who had no chance of winning.  These channels and sites ran the narrative over and over that Hillary was sure to win by a landslide victory, all the while, doubling down on reporting Trumps transgressions, while ignoring Clinton’s, and actively painting her as some sort of victim.  Even their scientifically-sound, factually-accurate polls continually placed Hillary as the shoe-in, despite all of those polls ending up incorrect.

The thing is, these polls were propaganda.  The weren’t there to serve as an informative litmus test for how the country as a whole was swinging politically.  They were meant to serve as an ego boost for the Democratic party, i.e. “We’re winning the battle you guys. We’re the best!”.  Unfortunately, cooking the polls by largely asking partisan Democratic voters who they are voting for, then passing it off as a sample of the entire populace doesn’t do you any favors.  The people who viewed Hillary as the guaranteed winner might have been less apt to go out and vote, while those who saw Trump as the underdog, might have doubled down in their efforts to get him elected.

Another factor that played in to Trumps favor was the fact that a large portion of modern leftists are overly emotional babies who don’t understand how government works.  This was fairly evident before the election even took place, but is as clear as ever, post-election.

In the week since the election, we’re seen numerous riots throughout the country in Hillary-voting cities, rife with violence and destruction.  Mind you, these aren’t civil-rights protests, but a bunch of self-righteous millennials throwing temper tantrums because the candidate they voted for didn’t win.  Though to be fair, about half of them, as it turns out, didn’t even vote (color me surprised).  Remember all those people who destroyed property and wasted everyone’s time because Obama won, and they voted for a different candidate?  Yea… me neither.

Not all of these brilliant protests involve violence and destruction being carried out under the amazingly ironic banner of “Love Trumps Hate” however. There is currently a change.com petition attempting to “correct” the election that 4+ million individuals felt the need to sign, because it’s unfair their chosen candidate didn’t win.  It states that Hillary won the popular vote, which they feel should be more important than the electoral college, which she lost.  Now, it’s perfectly fine to feel that way, but the electoral college trumps *rimshot* the popular vote in U.S. elections.  It did in 2000, when it George Bush beat out Al Gore, just as it did all the way back in in 1876, when Rutherford B Hayes defeated Samuel J Tilden (who?).  And now some entitled babies want to change it to their own benefit.

Why else could Trump possibly have won?  Let’s see… Perhaps it’s because of the absolute lack of ability to make a cogent argument that the Democrats have displayed time and time again.  If, whenever someone takes a stance against something like illegal immigration, your response is to not provide a viable counterpoint, but instead to hurl accusations of “racist”, you lose that argument in the eyes of a rational centrist.  If the topic of abortion comes up, the other side gives a reason why they are against it, and your response is merely to call them “sexist”, you lose that argument.  If someone expresses concern about the rise of radical Islam, or the rampant human rights violations in Islamic-state countries, and all you bring to the table is calling them “Islamophobic”, you lose the intellectual debate.  Ad hominem attacks do not equate to valid arguments.  To anybody undecided in these debates, the side who proposed extreme things like bans and walls potentially won out over the side who proposed absolutely nothing but personal attacks.

It appears a lot of the left is completely unaware of this critical flaw in their ability to debate and argue, unfortunately. One need look no further than the popular leftist folk all over the t.v. box and social media to verify this.

Trevor Noah, the current figurehead of Comedy Central’s Democrat promotion arm that masquerades as a non-partisan comedy program “The Daily Show”, non-ironically believes that Hillary Clinton lost the election because of racism, sexism, and misogyny, and that she “would have been president if she were a man”.  Never mind the fact that she has enough corruption under her belt to fill multiple books, including more death and destruction than a Michael Bay movie, while her opponent was merely a brash jackass.  Obviously, nobody ever votes on conscience, or votes for the lesser of two evils.  Everybody votes primarily on gender and race politics, always, in every election, ever.  How are you even on a political-based show, you monumental goof.

Then there are the celebrities with children’s levels of political knowledge, who never let that hinder the constant stream of regurgitated, misinformed opinions they spew out into self-constructed echo-chambers of social media group think.  Think Sarah Silverman or Patton Oswalt.  Both are comedians whom I actually find funny, but whom aren’t capable of exercising any level of nuance in their political opinions.  Both also have millions of followers on their twitter accounts, largely because of their political beliefs and constant virtue signalling, and less because of their actual comedy.

patton01

It’s amazing that for a lot of liberal comedians, writing actual material has been replaced by this virtue-signalling on social media.  Why craft a clever joke when you can just type out “Trump won because sexism and racism you guys!” and get loads of empty likes from people who would fail a basic competency test on U.S. government.  I’ll tell you why.  Because comedians generally have low self-esteem and a need for acceptance, which overrides their need to exhibit integrity and reasoning to obtain that acceptance in an intellectually honest fashion.  Hence this constant pandering to emotions in exchange for validation on social media platforms.

silvermantweet

The factor a lot of people seem to be overlooking in Trump’s win, is that for most rational people, the left has become the greater of the two evils in recent years.  The party that used to preach tolerance, has become the epitome of intolerance, hurling baseless accusations, and creating false oppression narratives to set itself up as the eternal victim.  After all, the “victim” is the one who is always on the “right side of history”.  Being the victim comes with great power in today’s fabricated oppression culture.

Anyone who disagrees with the modern leftist is immediately written off as wrong.  Any minority who proclaims to be conservative, or holds any kind of conservative value is immediately accused of “selling out”, or being an uncle Tom or “coon”.  Evidently, tolerance to these types of leftists doesn’t include the tolerance of differing views and opinions.  You must think the exact same thing I have been conditioned to think, or else there is something wrong with you, and shaming and name-calling are justified.

A lot of the young college-uneducated millennials love slinging around accusations of conservatives being fascists, and everybody and their mother being Hitler, despite having a very obvious lack of knowledge of history, or politics.  Donald Trump has nothing in common with Hitler, and anyone who is even remotely educated realizes this.  Fascists tend to believe in silencing dissenting opinions, and using violence to suppress those with differing views.  Remind me again who constantly tries to shut down rallies, and speaking engagements of people they disagree with, and continually engage in riots to “solve” their problems. Hint: 99% of them are in the #NeverTrump crowd.

This is what happens when a society fails to raise it’s children correctly though.  When kids are brought up without any adversity and are used to always getting their way, they don’t know how to react when things don’t turn out in their favor.  They throw temper tantrums and lash out.  This is what happens when everyone is given a participation award as a kid for simply showing up.  They can’t deal with the idea of losing at something.  When you lose at something in life, you either try again, or accept the loss.  You don’t break things.

This whole Clinton/Trump ordeal mirrors the Brexit vote over in Europe to an almost uncanny degree.  A vote was taken to decide if the U.K. would leave the European Union.  The vote passed by a 3.8% margin in favor of leaving the E.U.  People on the left immediately started calling everyone a racist or xenophobe because the vote didn’t turn out in their favor.  They then tried to get a petition going to redo the vote, only to have it overturned by the government.

One more possible reason that Donald Trump won the election, is that a good deal of the population had become fed up with the identity politicking of the left.  Everything has become about identity politics in the last few years.  Meritocracy has been completely thrown out the window, in favor of voting for people based on trivialities pertaining to pigment and chromosomes.  The common idiom of not judging a book by it’s cover has all but been neglected in favor of judging books solely by their covers.

There are warehouses full of people out there who voted for Hillary based solely on the fact that she is a woman.  Check out the comments section on mensa-level websites like BuzzFeed, Salon, or HuffPo to see the proof of this.  There exists zero nuance or fact in any of the comments posted under pro-Hillary, or anti-Trump articles on these sites.  It’s nothing but 24/7 identity politics and regurgitated ad nauseam arguments.

Progressive rule #36: If you don’t have a valid argument, throw out accusations of sexism

The fact of the matter is that Hillary Clinton had two types of people in her corner: those who were partisan voters, and would have voted for whomever ran as a Democrat, and those who voted for her merely because she was a female.  Nobody who was even remotely versed in politics went out and voted for Hillary because they viewed her as a good candidate.  She was a terrible candidate.  They were both terrible candidates.

Trump had three types of voters in his corner however.  Partisan voters who would have voted for the Republican candidate regardless, people who voted for him merely because he wasn’t Hillary Clinton, and people who voted for him because he was the anti-establishment choice.  He wasn’t a traditional Democrat or Republican.  He was essentially a third party candidate who managed to hoodwink his way into being the Republican nomination.  He has a lot in common with Bernie Sanders in this regard.  Neither of their parties wanted them to be the nomination.  Evidently 15% of potential Bernie voters decided to vote for Trump over Clinton, which is quite telling.

I’m going to end this here, because I could ramble on forever on this topic, but I’d rather take a few of these points and expound upon them in in future posts.  Hopefully I’ll up the creative output on this site in the coming year, and maybe even try to veer back into the comedic/creative writing field a little more.  Now that this 24/7 debacle of an election cycle has come to an end, my blood pressure will slowly lower and I can focus on things other than politics and social issues for a while.  I have about a dozen half-written posts on political/social topics, and those will see the light of day, but I’ll try to work in some other content as well.  I’m out.

 

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In Defense Of Pepe™

Recently, pandering living fossil Hillary Clinton put world famous meme-frog Pepe™ on blast.  For anybody not in the know (the elderly, special needs, Hillary, etc.), Pepe™ is a character from the comic “Boy’s Club”, known for being a freewheeling stoner type fella, who also happens to be an anthropomorphic frog.  Much like Xzibit™, Doge™, and Harambe™ before him, Pepe™ became a popular meme that was shared all over the internet, bringing happiness and joy to all.

Just like the Grinch however, hot sauce connoisseur Clinton couldn’t stand all that happiness.  She hates seeing people laugh and smile.  So she decided to utilize some good ole fashioned fear mongering, in an attempt to paint a digital cartoon character as a legitimate enemy of the state.  Now, it could just be that she’s just old and out of touch with anything remotely 21st century, but regardless, I won’t stand for Pepe’s™ legacy being tarnished.

On money embezzler Hillary Clinton’s website, what amounts to a slanderous hit piece was posted on September 12th.  One Elizabeth Chan, who was no doubt hired by Hillary’s campaign to make the Presidential hopeful seem more inclusive and minority-friendly, posted an “article” about Pepe™ the frog.  I put the word “article” in quotes because the piece is all of 300 words and quite obviously devoid of any actual research or critical thought.  It also reads like something that was written for students in a remedial fourth grade English class.  Maybe that’s the demographic Hillary is aiming for though.

In this “article”, Pepe™ is referred to as a white supremacist symbol.  You know, like the swastika or a burning cross on somebody’s lawn.  “How could this happen?”, you might be asking yourself.  Well, youngster, this is what happens when someone decides to write an article about something they know literally nothing about.  You know… like every Buzzfeed or Huffington Post article ever written.

A few devious young edge-lords on the internet decided to produce racially-themed versions on the Pepe frog, so now he’s being labelled a racist symbol.  That’s a completely rational line of thought.  By that logic, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, and even Mickey Mouse are symbols of white supremacy.  All of these characters starred in cartoons back in the day that were eventually banned because of overt racism.  Would we not condemn those individual cartoons as racist, without relegating every cartoon starring those characters to the racist pile?  If we were intelligent, we would surely exercise this discretion.

So why would anyone try to convince people that an innocuous cartoon character was racist?  It’s basic fear-mongering, pure and simple.  Most of Hillary’s demographic is middle-aged to elderly, and not exactly technologically proficient.  Most of them have probably never seen Pepe™, because most of them can barely work a computer.  If someone is barely able to work a computer, they certainly aren’t going to know who Pepe™ is, let alone what a meme is.  They probably think a meme is one of those French people who always pretends to be stuck in an invisible box.

Fear-mongering only works when your audience is ignorant of the subject at hand.  Who better to convince that weed turns people into degenerate criminals than someone who has never done the marijuanas?  Who better to convince that heavy metal music is a tool of the devil, than someone who has never listened to heavy metal music?  The ignorant are susceptible to being fed erroneous information, and believing it without question.

So basically, this appears to be some sort of desperate last-ditch effort by the Clinton campaign to coax people into a fear vote.  All other options have been exhausted, so let’s focus of something nonsensical, like internet cartoons.  The incessant minority-pandering doesn’t work as well as it used to.  You can only call your opponents racist so many times before the word has completely lost all meaning.  Hardly anybody shows up to the rallies you rarely give due to your constant illness.  Time to invoke a desperate hail-Mary pass of a political maneuver.

Enough about America’s favorite felon grandmother though.  What I set out to do here was explain that Pepe™ is actually a good guy, and that his name is being tarnished in an unfair political assassination attempt.  What proof do I have that Pepe™ is not a racist?  How about photographic proof?  Will stone cold factual pictorial evidence prove once and for all that the frog is a hero and not a zero?

Check it out:

martinlutherpepe2

That’s the main man Pepe™ with none other than Martin Luther King Jr.  You know, the guy who had a dream, only to be gunned down by ruthless government pig dogs.  I mean… he got gunned down by that one random guy.  I’m sure if Pepe™ was there that day, he would have gladly hopped in front of MLK, and taken a bullet for him.  That doesn’t sound very racist to me.  How dare you, Hillary!  How dare you.

 

malcolmpepe2

Well lookie here!  It’s Pepe™ yet again.  This time he’s cold chillin’ with none other than the main man Malcolm X.  Malcolm X was gunned down by a peace loving group called the Nation of Islam, but yet again, Pepe™ was too blazed to leap into action in time.  Oh well.  There’s always next time.  Once again, it’s the thought that counts though.  Pepe™ was just high, not racist.

 

tupacpepe2

Damn.  Pepe™ sure likes hanging out with the brothers.  Remind me again why people are saying that he’s a racist?  Fact of the matter is that Pepe™ has had a hood pass since day one.  Here he is with legendary rappers Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.  The government sure has a habit of killing people that Pepe™ is friends with.  That’s probably why Hillary is trying to slander him.  It’s a diversionary tactic to cover up the fact that she assassinates black men who don’t fall in line.  Allegedly.

 

westernwallpepe2

Well this picture sure is confusing.  I though Pepe™ was supposed to be all anti-Semitic or something.  Yet here he is, wearing some type of Jewish-y garb, taking pictures at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  You know, the most Jewish place ever.  And he’s also hanging out with some type of white mage.  Maybe he’s trying to get him to cast a revive spell on all those black guys that Democrats anonymous bad guys killed.

 

hasidicpepe2

One more photo of the quite obviously Jewish, and definitely not anti-Semitic Pepe™.  He even has one of those curly noodle hair things going on.  You can’t have that unless you are legit 100% kosher Jewish.  So knock it off, Hillary “Life Alert” Clinton.  Leave Pepe™ alone and get back to rape enabling, and committing human rights violations.

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Punching Evil In The Face

I just finished up this rad video yesterday.  I’ve been working on it for well over a month now.  I don’t think I’ve ever worked this long on anything before, except maybe a guitar that I’ve slowly been refinishing and rebuilding for like 2 years.  But lets not get sidetracked.  The important thing is that I made something that is awesome and you should probably feast your eyes on it, if you know what’s good for you.

It’s a video about people and things getting punched in the face, that should probably get punched in “real life”, but I’m not trying to go to jail on assault charges.  Also, a couple of the things getting punched aren’t around any more, and I’m not capable of time travel or leaving the physical plane.  I’m still getting the point across that I don’t approve of their shenanigans though.  So the people and things in this video better cut the nonsense out immediately, or else I might have to do another one of these.  I probably won’t though, since I don’t want to put like 60+ hours into something that only 14 people will see.

So here it is.  It’s made up of 135 individual photo-shopped images that were edited together to look like a sweet-ass video game. It’s like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, but with no actual drawing skill, and heaps more awesomeness and green screen effects.  Eat it, Hanna-Barbera.

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It’s Time To Retire, Bill Nye.

Somehow I missed a bit of unbridled brilliance that made a minor splash in the headlines about half a year ago.  It turns out Bill Nye, the television scientist from my youth, has started believing buffoonery on the level of the buffoonery he normally rails against.

He legitimately believes that terrorism in areas like Syria, is the result of climate change.  Yes, you read that correctly, and I typed it correctly.  Bill Nye the “Science” guy believes in nonsense on par with flat-Earth theory and chemtrails.

In a Huffington Post Live™ interview, available to view on youtube™, Mr Nye states: “It’s very reasonable that the recent trouble in Paris [Bataclan Massacre] is a result of climate change.”  No, Bill, that’s not reasonable on any rational level, but I’ll let you continue.

He goes on to state that due to a water shortage in Syria, farmers have been hit hard, and the “disenfranchised youth” who can no longer farm for a living then decide to join terrorist organizations.  The next thing you know, “they end up part way around the world in Paris, shooting people.”

I guess that’s a rational chain of events, Bill.  Every time there is a drought out in the Iowa farmlands, we notice a rash of terrorism in the U.S.  I mean, what other choice do these farmers have but to start yelling “The Lord is Great!” while shooting up non-Christians in some other country.  Keep up the great science-based science work, Bill.

It’s as if the guy has a complete lack of understanding of the human condition.  People do malicious, reprehensible things, not because of a skewed moral compass, but because they are going through a bit of a rough time.  Just got dumped by my girlfriend; guess I’ll go set a bus full of school children on fire.  Got passed over for that partnership at the law firm; time to go behead a bunch of Mormons.  Completely logical chains of cause and effect there.

If terrorism exists in higher concentrations in certain areas, it’s couldn’t possibly be because of any cultural or ideological reasons.  That’s too far fetched.  Terrorism being linked to slight changes in livelihood is the only logical explanation.  By this reasoning, a concentrated pocket of KKK activity in particular area must mean that there were layoffs at the local Chipotle™.  You can make a baseless correlation between any two things if you desperately want to believe there is a connection.

The complete lack of scientific method being employed here is staggering.  That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise however, being that Billy Nye isn’t even a scientist.  He’s a scientist in the same way that Larry the Cable Guy is a cable guy.  In name only.

Bill Nye holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering.  “But engineering sounds fancy though…  That must be science, right?” you might be asking.  Not according to an endless list of articles from universities and organizations that show up on google, when one enters “is engineering a science”, then hits the Enter button.  Bill Nye the Engineering Guy doesn’t have quite the same ring to it though.

If this man had an opinion on how to produce a more efficient engine, or to better produce sustainable energy, I would be more than happy to listen to him.  If he has an opinion on human behavior however, I’ll rightfully accept it with a grain of salt.  Mr. Nye and myself are on the same playing field on that topic.  We are two non-experts merely hypothesizing about what the motivations of violence in a particular situation are.  I however, am not trying to tie this violence to something unrelated, in an attempt to validate having the word “science” in my title.

Bill Nye the Engineering Guy has jumped to snap judgements on other topics before, only to later reversed his stance.  He was outright against GMOs, until he actually did some research on the subject, only to change his stance entirely.  He came to understand that GMOs are largely beneficial, and not worthy of all the fear that the anti-science types attribute to them.  I can respect that he was willing to admit he was wrong, and hopefully he realizes that climate change has nothing to do with murderous rampages.

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This Is What Propaganda Looks Like

Recently, nydailynews.com ran an article by one Gersh Kuntzman (actual name), which equates to nothing more than anti-gun propaganda.  The piece, called “What is it like to fire an AR-15? It’s horrifying, menacing and very very loud”, was conveniently posted 3 days after the Orlando nightclub shooting.

Now, the point of my post isn’t to make a pro or anti gun argument, but merely to call out blatant propaganda for what it is.  The article by Kuntzman clearly comes across as a propaganda piece.

Our buddy Gersh went to a shooting range in Pennsylvania in order to shoot the media’s big, bad, scary scapegoat, the AR-15.  Now, he acknowledges in the article, that the Orlando shooter didn’t even use an AR-15, but most in the anti-gun camp wouldn’t know the difference between an AR-15 and a toaster.  They recognize the name AR-15, because it’s become the poster child of sorts for the fear-driven, anti-gun side of the weapons debate.

It seems very likely that this particular shooting range was selected due to the owners rather liberal views on gun ownership.  The article states that many gun shops turned down the request to have a journalist and cameraman show up to discuss the much demonized AR-15 rifle.  Not guns in general, mind you, but the AR-15 specifically.  Any shooting range in their right mind would have turned down this request, under the assumption that the article that resulted would be nothing more than an anti-gun propaganda piece.  Anti-gun propaganda isn’t exactly great business for shooting ranges.

The article then proceeds to spout off numerous bits of erroneous information, and conflicting statements.

Mr Kuntzman states that he’s fired pistols before, but “never something like an AR-15”.  This implies to the reader that the AR-15 is a powerful beast of a weapon, far removed from your average pistol.  It isn’t however.  The rounds that a run-of-the-mill AR-15 fires are actually not very powerful rounds.  To give you an example of the power we’re talking about, there are clips on youtube of young children firing this weapon without problem.  It’s actually illegal in some states to hunt deer with the .223 Remington round that an AR-15 fires, because the round isn’t thought to be powerful enough to humanely hunt something the size of a deer.  The point of hunting is to kill the animal, not give it a wound it can show off to its friends for the next week.  This ammo is generally considered more of a round for hunting animals up to coyote size.

It seems as though either Mr. Kuntzman a) has never fired a gun of any type before, or b) is grossly over-exaggerating the power of the AR-15 for sensational effect.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why this man would need to exaggerate the power of the AR-15 for this unbiased article.  c) That was probably sarcasm.

He claims the recoil of the gun bruised his shoulder.  This gun and round combination is actually known for having a relatively tame recoil.  Its low recoil is one of its main selling features.  Once again, young children can be seen shooting this gun on youtube.

He states how the shell casings flying out of the gun disoriented him, and that the “smell of sulfer and destruction” made him sick.  With all due respect, these revelations merely make it seem as though Gersh is probably a little too soft to be firing weapons in the first place.  Some people get sea-sick on boats, and those people tend to stay away from boats as a result.  Other people aren’t cut out for riding on roller coasters and should probably stick to the teacup ride.  If you practically get a case of the vapours and faint, like a colonial woman, firing guns maybe isn’t the thing for you.

Perhaps most telling of all, he claims that the explosions, “loud like a bomb” gave him PTSD.  PTSD being that anxiety disorder that people who have been in actual traumatic situations get.  Situations like warfare, plane crashes, or rape.  Yet somehow this fragile, porcelain doll of a man had PTSD after merely firing a gun.  Once again, a gun you can watch small children firing on the internet.  Either he doesn’t understand what PTSD is, or is once again exaggerating.

This begs the question.  Is our buddy Gersh a complete joke of a man-child, or are all of these claims fabricated merely for sensationalism.  First off, the site this article appears on has a massive anti-gun bias.  Three of the 5 articles in the “most popular” section as of this writing, are about “assault weapons” and the NRA.  Secondly, the video that accompanies the article doesn’t portray a man who was shaken from firing a gun.  He actually comes across as reasonable and even keeled.  Viewing the video alone doesn’t give off the impression of a man who felt uncomfortable shooting a gun.

I can’t help but feel that Mr. Kuntzman had an agenda from the start to try to demonize a particular gun.  It’s obvious that the man knows little to nothing about guns, and is merely writing a feelings-based sensation piece.  He actually refers to this gun as a “weapon of mass destruction” and proclaims that it only belongs in the hands of those in the military.

The problem is, the military would never use a gun like the AR-15.  As previously stated, the gun is relatively weak by gun standards, but is also only semi-automatic.  The military wouldn’t bother carrying a gun this size unless it was fully automatic, or able to be switched between semi and fully automatic.  A stock AR-15 is probably a little too weak for military application as well.  Remember that it typically isn’t even used for deer hunting.

Regardless, Mr. Kuntzman received a substantial amount of blowback from the article, from people who were either able to see through the bullshit, or outright accused him of being a pussy.  I don’t think it makes one weak for not being into firing guns, but it does make one weak for engaging in misleading propaganda.

I’m not even a “gun guy”, but it annoys me to no end when I see uneducated and misleading journalism around every corner these days.  Maybe I’m off base to expect a little truth and integrity from people who have made their living as reporters.  Reporters are supposed to educate, and not mislead.  Everything I know about guns comes from doing research on the topic, the same way I come to learn about any topic.  There’s no reason somebody with the title of “reporter” or “journalist” shouldn’t be putting in the effort to research topics just as well.

Every anti-gun article I read is from someone who obviously couldn’t be bothered to do any research on the subject of guns.  Otherwise the same inaccurate data wouldn’t be getting passed off time and time again.  Things like the “AR” in AR-15 standing for assault rifle.  The AR actually stands for ArmaLite Rifle, the company that makes the AR series of guns, which have been around since the 50’s.  The term assault rifle refers to a weapon that has the ability to fire fully automatic, or at very least, burst fire.  No civilian weapons legally able to be sold actually meet this criteria.

Any gun you can legally purchase as a civilian will be semi-automatic, meaning you have to pull the trigger once for every time a bullet is fired.  Just about every handgun, including revolvers, are semi-automatic guns.  The AR-15 is semi-automatic too.  It just looks scarier to some folks because it’s modeled after military-style weapons.  If a gun isn’t fully or semi-automatic, that means its single-fire, and you need to manually load a round after each firing, just like they used to do back in your great great great granddaddy’s day.

One more thing.  Before I go, the term magazine and clip refer to two different things, and aren’t interchangeable, and silencers don’t actually exist; they are called suppressors.  Peace.

Addendum:

Apparently another reporter tried to write a sensationalized hit piece against guns the day after Mr Kuntzman’s failed attempt, and failed even more spectacularly.  Another unscrupulous reporter (are there any other kinds of reporters these days?) by the name of Neil Steinberg went out to gun shop in Chicago to purchase a gun.  What type of gun did he try to buy?  I’m sure you can make an educated guess.  That’s right!  An AR-15.  The official gun of goofy, middle-aged, cringy, progressive men writing propaganda pieces.

Turns out he was denied making the purchase after a background check showed that he had a history of both alcoholism and domestic abuse.  The very background checks that guys like this push mistruths of either not existing, or being ineffective, were quite effective in blocking him from purchasing a gun.

“Isn’t it ironic” -Alanis Morrisette (1995)

All these hack reporters set out to sway public opinion further against guns, only to make it even more evident that their stances on the subject don’t have very stable foundations.  The background check worked exactly as it should have in keeping this guy from obtaining a weapon.  In the eyes of the gun store, it would have been a liability to have an individual with a history of violence and substance abuse obtaining an gun.

But of course he refuses to accept that fact, and he ends the article by conspiratorially stating that he was actually denied the gun because he was a reporter.  Because evidently gun stores have an agenda of suppressing (+5 Gun Pun Points™) the truth about guns by preventing hack journalists from purchasing them in order to write hit pieces.  The complete and utter lack of self awareness here is astounding.

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Hey Bro. You Like Cute Kitten Compilations?

What’s up fam?  I heard you like cat videos.  Don’t lie.  A mutual friend told me that you like to sit in your den, in your footie pajamas, drinking chamomile tea, giggling frantically, while watching cute kitten compilations on youtube.  It’s cool though.  We all do it.  Just own it, my man.

So now that we’re being honest with each other, I gotta let you in on a little secret.  Well… recently I got into the cat compilation game.  Word on the street is that there’s a lot of money and prestige to be had in the cat comp. circuit.  I’m just trying to get that dough and ass, like all the other hustlers out there, and kittens are what’s hot out on these streets right now.

I think my first kitty comp. is a pretty good effort.  I put my heart and soul into it, and can’t help but feel that I injected it with my own person taste of the streets.  So give it a watch and let me know what you think.  Hopefully it reaches somebody with a little clout in the cat video industry, and I’m able to move someplace fancy, and buy my moms something nice, like a Bugatti.  I appreciate you fam.