Don's Tuesday column

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   1/22/2012

Bush, Tea Party and gun derangement

While months short of the 8-year anniversary of the April 2005, inaugural “News and Views” column, newer readers, even long time readers who’ve forgotten what brought it about, might find it interesting to look back. In 2009, it was renamed “The way I see it” as “Polecat News and Views” (DonPolson.blogspot.com) began providing informative, analytical articles on politics, news and issues, beyond what could have been contained in a weekly column.

For instance, go to the blog, scroll down to “gun rights/2^nd amendment” and you’ll find nearly 100 articles revealing far more than anyone on this page could ever tell you. One writer was so uninformed on the subject that they insisted we need to get rid of “automatic” weapons (illegal for private citizens to own without special federal license, for most of a century), practically unheard of in crime except on TV or in movies.

You’ll find 38 pieces on that dastardly gun-running scandal, “Fast and Furious,” which transferred thousands of high-powered weapons into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, resulting in hundreds of dead Mexicans, including certainly dozens of Mexican youths or children. Educate yourself and find out why I adamantly condemned President Obama for never apologizing, let alone shedding a tear, over the lives lost under his responsibility. Even now, AG Eric Holder is trying to persuade a federal judge to prevent Congress from getting emails related to that deadly gun-running program.

This bunch of duplicitous, corrupt cowards has earned my enmity, regardless of the tut-tutting of another writer. I stand fully with the NRA and their hard-hitting ad blasting Obama, and other prominent figures like NBC’s David Gregory, for having the unmitigated gall to send their children to well-armed-and-guarded schools while using the Sandy Hook massacre to lecture the rest of us on the futility of armed guards, even qualified, trained concealed carrying school personnel.

The inception of this column: In the early 2000s, this page often printed opinion from those fitting the euphemism coined by psychiatrist Dr. Charles Krauthammer, “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” First came the diatribes over the Bush v. Gore election, followed in short order with the unhinged conspiracy-mongers’ lunacy surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That led to further nonsense over the Patriot Act (excepting, of course, those who had genuine civil liberties concerns). Then the Congressionally-authorized Iraq war provided a nearly unlimited trove of supposed lies surrounding the case for war, that were invariably lies themselves.

Local Republicans and conservatives, tiring of the one-sided nature of opinion printed here, asked if a local writer might be allowed to regularly offer some balancing opinion from the right side of the spectrum. So, in the spring of 2005, a trial piece was provided to the editor, and this column began on a bi-weekly basis, moving to a weekly piece later that year. Another writer, in a self-serving recollection of the pointed, sometimes harsh language I used in pushing back against the “Bush deranged” liberals (which I specifically addressed to national, public figures), clearly misremembers the years of invective from the left.

Consider the continuing acrimonious Tea Party bashing that regularly appears. Consider also the aversion such writers obviously have for reducing the entitlement/welfare state expenditures to a reasonable portion of our governmental budget. That’s the only logical course other than just sending all our money to government and letting government provide for us all. Oh, wait – that’s Marxism. Yes, in spite of massive failure, some folks believe in socialism.

Readers, particularly the conservative super-majority of Tehama County, have tolerated the weekly offerings from the other three writers, who reliably lean to the left on any given issue. For instance, Americans in general, voters in Tehama County in particular, have a more favorable opinion of the National Rifle Association’s ideas for school safety than they do Obama’s (Rasmussen found Americans favored armed guards 2 to 3 times more than those against). I favor armed guards and allowing qualified personnel to carry concealed weapons, a perfectly reasonable proposition; no other writer so feels. Future columns will elaborate.

I have genuine regret over the next topic. It was resolved, or so one would have thought, last year when a columnist was shown to have 1) fabricated statements supposedly made by his critics and 2) resorted to thinly-veiled legal threats against said critics, without the slightest legal cause of action. So, when a strident and, in my opinion, largely wrongheaded column appeared in last week’s “Positive Point,” strident and strongly-worded objection predictably appeared in online comments, together with the critic’s name. You can access the exchange to make up your own mind by using the link to Mr. Mazzucchi’s “A license for insurrection.”

The critic was accused of expressing “armed and violent indignation”; nothing the critic wrote came close to such a mischaracterization – nothing! RM: “Comparing me to a Nazi because I don’t subscribe to your rationalizations for armed conflict is beyond ludicrous – it is downright evil. What you state is very close to libel and a disgusting characterization of a peace loving human.” Mr. Mazzucchi, not one word of criticism suggested you were being compared “to a Nazi.” Saying your critic’s comments were “downright evil” is in itself a “disgusting characterization” of someone who simply believes differently than yourself. An apology is in order, in my humble opinion.