All Politics is Local

POLITIX IN OUR OLD TOWN: This past weekend I wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper complaining that a certain candidate (Rick Hutto, Democrat) for City Council had placed a placard touting his candidacy on our front yard. This was done without Pop�s or my permission. Hutto had previously written the paper complaining that his opponent or her cadre had been vandalizing his signs and that his campaign was pristine in the placing of banners in yards whose residents had given permission to do so. He wrote back with a nasty letter to the editor claiming I had spoken falsely. I was also accused of not being a registered voter. The last is true. I won�t be able to vote until December when I turn eighteen, and there just ain�t any elections at that point in time.

But the fact is, the sign (since removed) was placed on our yard without permission. It was not there at dog walking time Saturday night; but an intruder at 8:00 AM the next morning. A little investigation at two other houses on the block where Hutto signs had been planted, confirmed that, according to the residents, permission had been given at neither address, So this evening, following completion of my obligation to Ian Kleinfeld, another letter goes out to the Macon telegraph.

MORAL OF THE STORY: If Mr. Rotundity, Teddy Kennedy can tell lies about the President on the floor of the Senate, what is to stop that party�s candidate for local office from stretching the truth about the purity of his own campaign? Of course, we do not claim that Mr. Hutto is guilty of Manslaughter in the drowning death of a young campaign worker way back in 1969. Perhaps the worst thing that can be said about him is that he is a member of the legal profession.

We did (and I think this is what pissed Mr. Hutto off in fact) end our letter with a line adapted from Gilbert and Sullivan: �He�s off and running at his party�s call, and he never thinks of thinking for himself at all.� That�s simple satire. Perhaps the gentleman is �mirth challenged�.

The more liberal one gets, the less he has a sense of humor. And before you complain bitterly, the same is true of conservatives. Those guys become more �mirth-challenged� the further they move to the right.

It is more than a year to the 2004 presidential contest and yours truly is already sick and tired of the growing number of idiots in the ranks of both major parties.

HIS NAME IS NATHANIAL HEATWOLE and he has turned the vast federal agency of the Transportation Security Administration upside down, flat on its bureaucratic ass.

He�s a kid. Twenty. Two or three years older than myself. A student at Guilford College up in North Carolina. Five weeks or so he sent an email to the TSA saying he had planted certain prohibited items in several airplanes. He used his real name and apparently tried to hide nothing.

A few days ago planes belonging to S.W. Airlines were found to have onboard bags containing boxcutters, bleach, and clay�.forbidden items�secreted in the lavatories. Each bag contained a note explaining that it had been sequestered as a a challenge to the TSA. It was simple proof that airline security, revamped, upgraded, and highly touted since 9/11 was deficient in cojones.

The feds are outraged. Heatwole has made his first court appearance and is out on his own recog. A trial will doubtless follow. Some are screaming for his head; others suggest that he be hired by the Administration to help locate soft spots in airline security. It is said he could get ten years.

Personally, I would give Nathanial a medal�or a certificate�or maybe a wall plaque, you know, something to remember and treasure the experience by. But the law and order types will probably prevail.

Can you imagine what would happen to him if he were turned over to John �Hang-em-High� Ashcroft and the Gestapo? If those clowns can send Tommy Chong to Federal prison for nine months for selling bongs on the internet, they could put this kid away for a lifetime, then cut it short with a sharp shiv in the shower.

I USED TO BE STRONGLY AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY, but that changed after 9/11 and I can see several categories of crime where the judicial taking of life is justified. These would include treason, terrorism, gang rape, major dope dealing (especially if the product is aimed at children), and overt child abuse including the sexual abuse of young children. BTW�were it my decision, I would do away with all kinds of �hate� crimes. That kind of legal crapola is but one more example of political correctness run amuck. We can�t pick on anybody very much these days except white males and Jewish people in some quarters, college campi especially, where anti Israeli sentiment is coupled with a new-found deep and abiding love for our Arab brothers. Particularly the Palestinians and others who would drive erase Jewish State from the face of the earth..

The question of the DP is brought up because this week began the trial of John Muhammad, older of the two alleged D.C. snipers. Acting as his own defense counsel, the poor guy apparently never heard the adage that a man who serves as his own lawyer has a fool for a client. I feel strongly that if he is found guilty, he should be put to death. Same with Malvo, seventeen at the time of the shootings. He should die. Every seventeen-year-old I know understands that murder is against the law and multiple murders simply add to the horror and the wrongness of the deeds.

Are these guys terrorists? Perhaps not, in the sense of the word handed down in the legacy of nineteen mostly Saudi bastards responsible for 9/11. But the effect of their actions is the same�the death of multiple innocent persons and the terrorizing of large numbers of the people.

There may be a link between these guys and Arab Fundamentalists who would destroy our civilization. This link may exist only in the minds of the two perpetrators, but if there is any real link, it must be rooted out. We missed the boat, possibly, by allowing Timmy McVeigh to go to his death without investigating his further possible ties with known terrorists.

GUN CONTROL IS KNOWING FOR CERTAIN WHERE TO AIM THE THING: Received earlier today an interesting, well-though out email from Ian �Big Boss� Kleinfeld on the subject of gun control. Probably the result of something I wrote him, but I don�t recall off the tippy-top of my pointed head.

Among other things he is against automatic weapons and most semi-automatics; he would register all handguns, only sell them with trigger locks, limit bullet sales, and force gun show dealers to keep good records. That is not everything he said, but I have removed the profanity and references to the stupidity of Mr. LaPierre.

I disagree. We are a gun owning family and all of us shoot often. We belong to a recognized outdoor gun club, and shoot two or three times a week when we can. Pop is a certified hunter-safety instructor, and has made same gun handling, respect for the weapon, respect for nature, and respect for ourselves the keystone of this sport. Rob and I hunt; Pop prefers to take a camera along when it means shooting animals.

We own multiple firearms each and lots of ammunition having, In fact, the capacity to load our own ammo in every caliber or gauge gun we shoot. None of us has ever had an accident with a firearm. In his lifetime Pop has taught hundreds of kids and adults gun and hunting safety. His record is enviable.

Crimes of violence, murder, you name it, lots of people are afraid. Many purchase weapons, pistols especially, for self protection. Some of these guns fall into criminal hands; some are used to kill a member of the family. But this is no reason to outlaw guns�.this is a reasons to do increase firearm education.

There are more than enough laws on the books to handle every conceivable firearm situation. These are often unenforced or enforced selectively.

The so-called �gun show loophole� is a myth. Dealers at these affairs, and I attend several a year, are required to follow the same laws�state, federal, and local�that any registered gun dealer must. And these include background checks.

Now transactions between individuals are not controlled, and it would be impossible to do so. An adult person can sell a legal firearm to another private individual. This is what got both the denizens of Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian compound in hot water with the BATF. These guys dealt in illegal weapons. That gave the Feds an excuse to kill a fourteen-year-old boy, his mother, and his golden retriever at Ruby Ridge and to fry over two dozen children in Waco. And Ashcroft wasn�t even AG yet!

Ask Al Sharpton if he wants to take away weapons from the hands of his urban constituency.

Heard this week on T. V. news (news�not opinion) that for every crime committed by a gun-toting felon, forty-five others are prevented by guns.

One man�s gun control is but another�s one step toward in the complete disarming the citizenry. Many fear the ascendancy of the John Ashcrofts and the erosion of civil rights. The liberal argument is usually: well, maybe Ashcroft (ahem) is OK, but we fear loss of liberty down the road. Liberals and conservatives often seem to agree on this point. The argument against further gun control is exactly the same, any of Ian�s ideas may be workable for now, but there are many individuals, forces, and political bodies (including the U.N.) whose stated aim is to take guns away from the people. Slippery slope, anyone?

The anti-gun forces like to do things incrementally. The increment stops here, folks. There are millions of good people who will not suffer further constraint on their right to bear arms. We care not what the U.N., Hillary Clinton, nor John Ashcroft would like us to do in this matter. We will never live in a United States where only the government has firearms.

The road to tyranny is paved with stupid intentions.

LOST SOME OF THE BEST WRITING I EVER DID this week when the kitten, Jihad, jumped on this desk two nights ago, hit some random combination of keys, and deleted forever the output of two days. Total bummer. Working hard to rewrite. Wouldn�t have happened had I gone deer hunting with my brother Rob.

So check out our table of contents at http://members.aol.com/luciusson/contents.html and look especially toward the end as we tell the sad story of Luke�s twelfth year run-in with the law. You can tell it happened before I got my new Pop because I survived the encounter. Don�t mess with that dude.

We also do a weekly over at http://politicalpulpit.com sometimes a twice weekly, but over there David Allyn is up to his eyebrows with work and is pissed at me anyway in a major way. So he is a little slow getting my stuff up online. Ran last week�s piece twice now. I kind of liked it, but not for two weeks in a row. Rumor is Seattle is awash with flooding these days. Better check the weather channel.

If you ever get to Georgia, try to find me. That�s a joke, Ian already has our street address.

Ciao,

Luke Angelo
Macon, Georgia
The little city most often mistakenly identified as a cemetery. Or is it a mistake?

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Luke Angelo, Cyberbrat Out Of Hell, lives in Macon, GA, where he regularly causes trouble and proves that the pen is far mightier than the Mayor