YIKES!!!!  Check out the video and a response by a thoughtful man in Virginia.   

 The following diatribe was cut from a conservative email floating around the country – this is an example oof how really crazy some people are – We are not talking about a healthy think-outside-the-box crazy – but dangerous crazy.

Here is the video along with the email text.  A commentary follows.

 Subject: LOOK AT THIS BEFORE IT IS BLOCKED

I see about 6 points being made in this. (Really just 1 point; we are in deep do-do with 6 supportive reasons.) But I don’t agree with any of it. All of this is complicated and each issue has already had volumes of documentation written. I don’t know it all but General Boykin certainly doesn’t either. Here are some thoughts on it.

First though, a note: Marxism, fascism, communism, capitalism, socialism, and all the other isms — there is so little common understanding of these terms that if I use one of the words your interpretation of what I am saying can be very different than what I meant.

1. Nationalizing private businesses: The gov’t has sold back ownership of the businesses it had supported. Car companies such as GM no longer have gov’t ownership (it depends on whose numbers you read whether or not the gov’t lost money or how much) and AIG (insurance, I think) paid back the gov’t with a good profit to the gov’t. But the deal is these were never intended to be permanent ownership by the gov’t but temporary economic supports for the good of the country. It was a judgment call that this would be better for the country than letting them go down. Hoover watched businesses go down and with them the country went into the Great Depression.

2. Redistributing wealth: The gov’t sometimes takes from the rich to help the poor with such things as higher Income tax on the rich and earned income credit for the poor. Yes, the health care plan is a redistribution of wealth but is that bad? We have greater disparity of wealth in our country now than we’ve ever had. Countries with greater equality repeatedly are listed with the happiest populations. http://www.financialjesus.com/how-to-get-rich/top-10-happiest-countries/ Denmark is #1 in happiness with the highest taxes in the world. The U.S. is #17 on the list, not too bad. I don’t think we need to go as far into welfare (or taxes) as Denmark but there is no perfect economic system and capitalism has many serious faults; we can modify the system and make progress in equality. Higher taxes on the wealthy is redistribution but Warren Buffets defends this with the view that we, in America, have already won the ovarian lottery. We were lucky to be born in the U.S – had our course been birth in poverty areas of India or other such places in the world – how much of our income would we be willing to pay to change the course and get the U.S. birth certificate. He supposes that each of us would be willing to pay a high percent.

3. Discredit opposition – Department of Homeland Security persons spoke of threats from right-wing Christians and returning veterans without mentioning Islamic terrorists. I don’t know what he is referring to but you don’t find this perspective on the Department of Homeland Security’s website. http://www.dhs.gov/preventing-terrorism And as far as discrediting opposition, that seems to be a natural course to follow in our current culture of polarity; General Boykin discredits the Congress when he says none of them read the health care plan.

4. Censorship: wherein he talks about mainstream media being on the left and hate crime legislation being targeted at pastors due to their blasting at homosexuals and the realities of Islam. Terry Jones, the head of a church in Gainesville, Florida does things that are extremely offensive to people of the Islam cultures. I suppose these things fall under free speech rights but never-the-less it does offend a lot of people (I mean a lot of people). I don’t have so much of an issue with him, I just think he is a moron. But I really don’t like the Westboro Baptist church demonstrating at events such as funerals for our military members killed in action – with their claim that we are being punished (by God) for allowing homosexuality. I think they are an abomination and while this might be a freedom of speech thing I would like to see them stopped. I think what they do is a hate crime and I hope that is the legal path we can take to stop them.

        There has long been discussion of whether the media leads the people (Marshall McLuhan, the Medium is the Message) or if the media responds to the people. I spent a couple of years signing up members in the National Federation of Independent Business; it is a pretty conservative group. I found it very difficult to sign up a person with liberal viewpoints even though my argument to them was that the direction the NFIB took was guided by the votes of the members (the NFIB provided them with very biased opinions to guide the vote). But, in general, I think people support causes and media that they already align with, then with the shared thinking of like minded persons they become more fervent in their cause. This causes their biases to become more pronounced (and the polarity in our country to widen as everyone does it). I think General Boykin is far down the road of this type of bias. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Boykin  If most of the media leans left it may be because it reflects the desire of most of the people. It takes some effort to seek out and objectively learn the other sides point of view.

5. Control of guns and the U.N. small arms treaty: Gun control talk is about defending yourself and your home. I think we already have controls and limits on the degree of defense we can employ; the argument is actually where do we draw the line. If I felt I needed heavy firepower to defend my home from an intruder then I would like to have grenades but that is not legal. The same logic that prevents possession of grenades should also prevent ownership of assault weapons. A 357 magnum will shoot through a wall; why do you need more than that to defend your home – if you are a bad shot, get a shotgun.

        But the General was talking about the U.N. small arms treaty. We all live on one planet and just as our 50 states must compromise and work together to maintain our United States I think all of the countries of the world must compromise and work together to maintain some sense of world law in striving for peace. So I support a stronger U.N. And just as we try to gather a coalition of other countries to shame those who have little or nor regard of human rights we should be facing the condemnation of others for our support of arms supplies throughout the world. Our arms industry is massive and they have a predominant role in fighting any legislation that would limit their profitability but they have no conscience to the consequences of these sales.

6. Establish a constabulary force: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2485607/posts

SEC. 5210. ESTABLISHING A READY RESERVE CORPS. Section 203 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 204) is amended to read as follows: ‘‘SEC. 203. COMMISSIONED CORPS AND READY RESERVE CORPS. ‘‘(a) ESTABLISHMENT.— ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—There shall be in the Service a commissioned Regular Corps and a Ready Reserve Corps for service in time of national emergency. ‘‘(2) REQUIREMENT.—All commissioned officers shall be citizens of the United States and shall be appointed without regard to the civil-service laws and compensated without regard to the Classification Act of 1923, as amended. ‘‘(3) APPOINTMENT.—Commissioned officers of the Ready Reserve Corps shall be appointed by the President and commissioned officers of the Regular Corps shall be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. ‘‘(4) ACTIVE DUTY.—Commissioned officers of the Ready Reserve Corps shall at all times be subject to call to active duty by the Surgeon General, including active duty for the purpose of training. ‘‘(5) WARRANT OFFICERS.—Warrant officers may be appointed to the Service for the purpose of providing support to the health and delivery systems maintained by the Service and any warrant officer appointed to the Service shall be considered for purposes of this Act and title 37, United States Code, to be a commission.

        One of the comments on the website I would agree with offered this:

This sounds like the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which has a medical mission, not a police one. (During the Reagan administration C Everett Koop was Surgeon General and sometimes made public appearances in uniform. That was his USPHSCC uniform. The Surgeon General is an O-9, equivalent to vice admiral or lieutenant general.) [My thoughts – imagine large scale epidemics or some other population threatening health issue then these are the ready reserve of manpower to come work on it. I wouldn’t be so suspicious of the purpose as much as the cost; but it might be voluntary.]

        Beyond that the President is already Commander in Chief of the military (active and reserve) and in charge of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. He doesn’t need anything else to be considered vested with a constabulary force. When Eisenhower wanted to enforce desegregation in schools he sent in the national guard in Arkansas. From Wikipedia, a constabulary force has 3 degrees: a constable in England, or the Canadian Mounted police in Canada or our military presence in post WWII Germany. It is for stablization, order and peace.