Special to the Mirror. This philosophical piece is written by Michael Jordan of Cape Charles.

I was happy and comfortable in my religious faith before being subjected to the study of philosophy; God was in heaven and I was certain of the disposition of my soul at death. This, dear teacher, is no longer the case. You have, through the simple use of dialectic, shattered the thesis of my previously-held spiritual beliefs.

I am sure the guilt you now feel is overwhelming, but not altogether alien. You, no doubt, have enjoyed this power of iconoclastic destruction for many years, and must have fine-tuned your stealthy system of pillaging unsuspecting individuals of their religious presuppositions to the nth degree.

Were you, as I am now, also the victim of some highly educated scoundrel who, eager to inflict psychological pain on the innocents of the world, absconded with your peace-of-mind? Did he also enjoy, over the course of the semester, seeing the slow elimination of your once concretely held spiritual beliefs? Or are you, a self-made harborer of doubt, forever roaming the countryside, looking for unsuspecting unfortunates upon whom to unleash your Pandora’s Box of debilitating truths?

You, my dear sir, are a rogue. You dared to provide me with the radical views of the most brilliant minds of the world who concerned themselves with the ultimate questions of reality. Now, I can no longer just accept the teachings of those I once held in high regard. Because of you, their premises are no longer valid. I must now, on my own, decide the truths of my own reality… I don’t know how you can bear the responsibility for such influence upon me. But you must not do anything rash. Over time, I may yet recover my psychological balance. Until then, I shall have to console myself with excessive lovemaking and large quantities of wine.

Previous to your exposé of pre-Christian philosophical beliefs, there was, in my mind, only one report of a virgin birth. Now, this miraculous event has been diluted by information that this occurrence was typical throughout Greek and Roman mythological history. Furthermore, the origin of loving thy enemy as well as thy friend, prior to your revelation, was the sole property of Jesus the Christ. I now know that Socrates taught this long before Him. Before my enlightenment by you of the progression of philosophical thought, I would not even have considered that Jesus’ teachings were of Greek origin, but that they were, without doubt, sent directly from God.

I now have a new-found respect for Jesus as a man, a great man, whose philosophy has overshadowed all other philosophical systems, and whose positive effect on the world, to one degree or another, has lasted over two thousand years. I also believe that His beneficial influence on the world will never end, not only because of the close relationship so many believe He has with God, but because of what may be, the independent power of his own philosophy teachings. [Read more…]

Special Opinion to the Mirror by Paul Plante

Those who don’t know history are fools and those who make them their leaders and then follow them are even bigger fools, and we are privileged to be living in a time when that story is playing out all around us on the world stage, where the con-man, that being United States President and seemingly World-Class moron Donald J. Trump, the “Let’s Do A Deal Dude” who is running this country like it was a shady bidness in some third-world ****hole, has inflicted FIRE AND FURY (a very tired and hackneyed phrase these days) on Bashar Assad of Syria.

Except he didn’t, and the only ones who believe that crap spew that he did are the incurably incredulous in this country who watched the fireworks on TV and said to themselves “WOW, HOLEY MOLEY, ZOUNDS, LOOK AT THAT TRUMP PUTTING A REAL GOOD ***-WHUPPING ON THAT BASHER DUDE IN SYRIA WHO IS KILLING THE MERCENARIES WE HAVE OVER THERE TRYING TO OVERTHROW HIM!”

Except he didn’t.

Look at what Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute has to say about it in the Washington Post article “Trump’s strikes on Syria risk retaliation, escalation in a war he wants to avoid” by Paul Sonne on 14 April 2018, as follows:

The allure of such strikes, Pollack said, is that they are “feel-good military operations,” which make the American public think they have done something to help Syrians.

“No we didn’t,” Pollack said.

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[Read more…]

Tough guys don’t dance…

This week, after Nasim Aghdam entered the Youtube campus, shot two people and then killed herself, the coverage was relatively subdued. Outside of an NY Times editorial that stated that big tech, Silicon Valley must now enter the gun debate, the story faded.

Not surprising, here are the details:

Nasim was not male, not “white” or a conservative. She was a vegan and she did not use an AR-15. She was not an NRA supporter and committed the crime in a strict gun control state, as well as in a “gun free zone”. Bummer, dudes. So much for the gun narrative de jour.

Would someone mind getting Jim some water to help wash his hat down?

Here’s the problem. Since Parkland, the American political left, essentially Northeast Postmodern Bourgeois Liberalism, has attempted to frame an argument in the name of “common-sense gun control”, which, after pulling back the curtain is simply an argument for giving up more rights and being submitted to more government control. It’s really just about control.

What has been unmasked is the darkness and vicious nature of these proponents. While they bemoan the tragedy and hysterically cry about ‘children’s safety’, behind it all is an abject hatred for those that disagree with them politically, and the yen to dominate and control the ‘flyover people’.

Parkland “survivor” David Hogg (Newsweek photo)

NRA members have felt the brunt of this.

As an NRA member, you know that almost 100% of us believe in gun control, even as we insist on being able to legally purchase the proper firearms for the task, whether for self-protection, hunting, or range work. Rather than consulting the NRA, which was the first group in this country to promote gun laws and gun safety, the left has instead attacked them as terrorists, somehow blaming them for the actions a few very disturbed people.

And by the way, the AR-15 is a hunting rifle.

This is where we stop listening. We understand what this is about.

I’m less sad than disgusted by what this country has become. When did it become overrun by a bunch of Le Chattes? I understand that a large portion of the country has been lobotomized by eight years of Obama, but I never realized things had gone this far south. It made me remember something Norman Mailer said during a lecture many years ago at George Mason University. He was describing a scene from his novel Tough Guys Don’t Dance.  The main character climbs a 100 ft. tall monument, and once at the top, realizes he cannot get back down. But he wasn’t worried, because he knew that someone would eventually come and get him down. As Mailer noted, “individual responsibility, owning the good and the bad is all but gone…replaced by blame, or the belief that someone will be there to rescue you.” Free to be as stupid and boring as you want.

“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one’s position but made it more perilous. That was why the world he knew was poor, for it insisted morality and caution were identical.” – Norman Mailer, The Deer Park

I get what he’s saying. We’ve lost some toughness somewhere. Not so much about fighting, but having some consideration, having a backbone, some grit. America used to be politeness and hard work. Now, you tell me.

Who says things like this?

We now occupy a world of #Dystopian Soda Flavors such as FBI Fig, Government Grape, Zuckerberry, Twitterlicious Tamarind, Cranberry Censorship and Social Justice Starfruit. As they like it.

As a programmer in the early 1990s, I remember the distinct excitement surrounding development around the world wide web. Then came the  Mosaic web browser, which was co-written by Marc Andreessen, and eventually, Netscape Navigator. What many of us believed, especially in the open source community, was that this tool represented freedom–freedom from government control and censorship, freedom from corporate domination. We were wrong. The Google motto of ‘do no evil’ has turned out to be a sham–it has been appropriated. Facebook willingly gave away personal data to ensure an Obama victory, Google and YouTube actively censor viewpoints and mines user data, Twitter and YouTube actively censor ‘inappropriate’ accounts (usually conservative).

We thought the web would be the tool to free us, it is instead the tool used to watch and keep us in line. Of course, that is what the progressive movement has wanted since 1912. Say hello to the NSA…Snowden knows.

When you spent the past couple months yelling at the authorities to “DO SOMETHING!” but forgot to specify that you actually meant “Do something to SOMEONE ELSE!”

That brings us back to the gun control “debate”. The fact that people are stupid enough to fall for this garbage is truly depressing. Face it, the chance of dying from a gunshot is very, very small. To be sure, your death is imminent, but the chance of meeting your end from the barrel of a gun is practically non-existent. You are more likely to get struck by lightning in a boat, or even more likely to die in a car crash…let’s not even talk about the threat of disease. For guns, if you take business (drugs, organized crime, etc.) and suicide out of the data, and it almost doesn’t exist.

Yeah, I know, murders and bad things happen every day…I drove a cab in the DC Metro area during the 1980s during the glorious reign of Marion Barry. I’ve seen it. However, back then just being in the vicinity of a murder, or being robbed at 2 a.m. didn’t make you an expert on anything…except on how to try and shake it off. You never really do though.

How do people really expect this thing to end? Instead of focusing on our relative affluence and all the real opportunities in the American world, the narrative of white privilege, the gun lobby, the evil alt-right, etc. is used to strategically divide and marginalize. People are just dumb enough to believe it. It just pisses the rest of us off.

With a populace anesthetized, lobotomized, weak, subdued and bathed by the phone and computer screen, the cult of personalities actively use the techniques of mass media, propaganda, spectacle, the arts, patriotism, and organized demonstrations and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and very big lie.

It’s just so easy, and so attractive. Much more enjoyable than work.

Special Opinion to th Mirror by Chas Cornweller

The fight for the soul of Democracy, the heart of America, has come to this…the normalization of President Trump his methods by which he has come to try and win the hearts and minds of the citizens of America. This clash of wills is NOT between the ideals of the Left and the ideas of the Far Right. This battle is for the soul of middle America, the hard working, blue collared, down in the trenches, working pay check to pay check American who pay their taxes and tithes and have a true stake in the positioning of the United States today. Unfortunately, the weapons being used are so foreign to the ideals and thinking of the average American, they are unrecognizable as being a form of weaponization in the first place. By that I mean, most Americans are blind to the fact that they are being manipulated by the very battle that rages daily from our media sources.

That moment our leader or any leader for that matter disparages the very sources the American public relies on for its information, and its security and justice, then we have arrived at the slippery slope and the beginning of a downward fall. Our president began the alienation of the press (fake news/lying reporters) long ago. And he has disparaged our military (I know more than our generals/I know better than they on how to defeat ISIS) and our justice system (Corrupt FBI/Disparaged CIA and the Attorney General and by proxy, the Justice Department). The very moment the president relays his lack of faith in the system to his public, that system is set up to fail. Now, you know the system of which I am talking about. That system our fore-fathers had wisely set in place as a Checks and Balance on each other and on that system, itself. So, either Donald Trump is that lone voice in the wilderness calling out the system is corrupt and rotten to the core, or Donald J. Trump has something nefarious going on. It cannot be both. OR the third leg of this chair could very well be this…the presidency and all of his backers and supporters (not you middle America – you have no power) and those cronies that now hold him up, are vying for a destabilized American system (remember checks and balance) to replace it with a more powerful centralized government. A system run on propaganda, falsehoods, red herrings, division, mistrust, and obedience. A system characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and ultimate control of industry and commerce. One that believes in the elimination of the liberal democracy replaced by a rule of law, governed by a small, all-powerful oligarchy. This is what the president has to make palatable to the American public. [Read more…]

Special Opinion to the Mirror by Paul Plante

First of all, I would again like to thank the Cape Charles Mirror for being egalitarian (relating to or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities) and for presenting diverse opinions on this question of what is being called “gun control” in America right now.

A serious part of that debate has to do with denying access to guns to those deemed by somebody, obviously someone in a position of power, to be mentally ill and dangerous.

I am one of those who knows that in corrupt New York State, falsely accusing people of being mentally ill and dangerous is a political weapon, so I am asking those who are for that, and they are many, how that will not be abused by a government that does not want its citizens to have access to guns for political reasons, largely because the government does not trust its citizens, and to date, there has been no answer, which I find unacceptable, especially in the light of McKay v. New York.

We were introduced to McKay v. New York in here by our dear friend tkenny @ April 4, 2018 at 11:21 pm, as follows:

On February 26, 2018, the Hon. Frank P. Geraci, Jr. of the Western District Court of New York released his Decision and Order in the federal civil rights case of Donna McKay vs. the State of New York.

The victory for those like Donna, who are falsely accused of having been “involuntarily committed,” is in the dismissal of her case.

Victims of this systematic, false reporting by New York State to the FBI now have a clear course of legal action in county and federal courts to restore their Second Amendment and property rights.

End quotes

And let’s stop right there, people, and scroll back to the words “(V)ictims of this systematic, false reporting by New York State to the FBI,” where “systematic” means “done or acting according to a fixed plan or system; methodical.”

Now, that is our dear friend tkenny saying that, not myself, and in doing so, he does in fact validate what I have been saying about New York, which is that it abuses the process of declaring who is mentally ill and dangerous for political reasons, and so, cannot be trusted with that determination in connection with our 2d Amendment rights.

Where is the fail-safe against abuse, I want to know from tkenny and Cameron Kasky and David Hogg, and to date, no answers are forthcoming, only the sounds of silence.

Getting back to tkenny @ April 4, 2018 at 11:21 pm, he continued as follows, which in its turn led to this essay: “You see, the system can correct itself.”

“Some laws need a little tweaking because of unseen circumstances.”

End quotes

And no, tkenny, it is not a little tweaking – it is a whole lot of tweaking as we shall soon see.

So let us go without further ado to “Matter of License To Carry a Pistol Issued to Donna L. McKay,” 2016 NY Slip Op 26180 Decided on June 7, 2016 County Court, Yates County Falvey, J. published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431, decided on June 7, 2016, County Court, Yates County, State of New York, as follows:

The respondent, age 38 (DOB: xx/xx/1977) was issued a license (CW 08-03) to carry a pistol on March 12, 2008.
[Read more…]

Special Opinion to the Cape Charles Mirror by Chas Cornweller

I watched in awe this past weekend of young children (I am in my sixties, so anyone under forty is considered young to me – anyone under twenty is still a child in my eyes) taking to the streets and soapboxes of this nation to inform this nation, that they are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore. In fact, not only are they mad as hell, but they are frightened, confused, and somewhat disappointed in the very people they expected to protect them and keep them safe during their childhood, adults.

I watched in awe as many spoke eloquently with dignity and purpose. Some used theater, expression mixed with pathos, and with strength to get their points across. Some were as young as eleven years of age! In Washington D.C. there were upwards to half a million souls, reaching out to the rest of the nation for answers and for help in reaching those answers. It was peaceful and it was strong. And more importantly, it shows no signs of waning anytime soon.

I am old enough to remember the protests of the sixties. The main issue then, was, what was the sense of justice in, of sending a young man half-way around the world to kill and subjugate a people, we had no issues with. Tag lines; such as Chinese involvement, Soviet involvement and Domino Theory, came from the mouths of politicians and government officials and permeated the media. These, along with the phrases, Hearts and Minds, appeasement, draw-down, guerrilla warfare, Vietnamization, ceasefire, Paris Peace Accords, were the political propaganda of the day. Conversely, young people protested and carried signs that read, Hell No, We Won’t Go, Ban the Bomb, End the War, Veterans for Peace and Power to the People. There was a sense that societal issues were losing to a war driven by issues that no one seemed to be able to do anything about. So, the youth rallied and took to the streets. If you watch the timeline, you will see that the movement started fairly quietly and relatively peacefully. In 1965 thru 1967, most marches were smaller and quieter, spurred on by passionate and intelligent speeches. But by the time of the Democratic Convention of 1968 in Chicago, the mood began to change. With out of control police and rampant brutality (both televised and chastised on the international front) the youth of America began taking a hard look at their parent’s generation (and the authority then in place) and began to outwardly and physically rebel. In many places, the marches turned violent and ugly. The war dragged on for a number of years, only to be lost in the end. And for America to be told, eventually, the government knew that it was fighting an unjust and losing (War) only to have dragged it out due to politics, fear of losing face in the international community and a fear of a backlash from the real enemy, the Communists states of China and Russia. It did not come in the expected way. We (American Government) opened the door on Cambodia and Laos. We infiltrated two neutral countries only to pave the way for lesser and more violent actors to step in and fill that void, once we pulled out. It’s what we do…we are good at it. Cuba, Chile, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya…the list is long. And growing… [Read more…]

Special Opinion to the Cape Charles Mirror by Paul Plante

For those who do not yet know him, David Miles Hogg (born c. 2000), who just crushed Laura Ingraham of FOX News in a matter of hours, and left her groveling at his feet, seeking his grace, is an American student who survived the massacre of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018, and afterward became a gun control advocate and an activist against gun violence in the United States.

According to his professionally-done Wikipedia bio, Hogg chose to attend Stoneman Douglas High School because of the television production classes it offered, and he is a media –savvy Teenlink reporter for the Sun Sentinel, as a result.

While hiding in a closet while the shooting was going on at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, used his cell phone to record the scene and to interview the other students hiding in the closet, and after the school shooting, Hogg emerged as a leader in the 2018 United States gun violence protests, turning to the media to talk about his role as a survivor in the shooting and voice his opinion on gun control and gun violence.

After finishing high school, Hogg plans to take a gap year to campaign for politicians in favor of gun reform.

Hogg was also featured on the cover of an April 2018 edition of Time. [Read more…]

Special to the Cape Charles Mirror by Paul Plante

No, it is not a frivolous question, people, and what makes it not a frivolous question but instead a serious question is the source of the question, which comes to us from a GULF NEWS story out of Dubai entitled “School shooting survivors call for US gun control at Dubai forum – Three seniors from Florida school recall devastating day to highlight gun laws at GESF 2018” by Faisal Masudi, Staff Reporter, published March 17, 2018, where we were informed as follows concerning the subject of who should be allowed to own guns of any sort in this nation:

Dubai: Students who survived last month’s deadly school shooting in Florida, which killed 17 people, called for tighter gun control at the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) in Dubai on Saturday.

Three schoolmates — Suzanna Barna, Lewis Mizen and Kevin Trejos — from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School spoke about the shooting and urged delegates to support stricter gun regulation.

End quotes

It is, of course, of interest that our future as citizens of this nation is being put up for some kind of vote over in the Middle East where Dubai is located, but such is the global nature of the world we live in today, that what our rights should be in this country are now subject to vote by other nations on the planet.

As to Dubai itself, in a story in the British publication The Independent entitled “Johann Hari: A morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labour” on Friday 27 November 2009, we are told as follows:

Dubai is finally financially bankrupt – but it has been morally bankrupt all along.

The idea that Dubai is an oasis of freedom on the Arabian peninsula is one of the great lies of our time. [Read more…]