In the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shootings on June 18, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from the State capital’s flagpole. Regrettably, even if her call for action is successful, it would do no more to change the reasons behind the hatred that drives one human to kill others than legislation to ban the “N” word would go towards closing the inaccurately named “racial” divide.
Thank you Rich, thank you Mayor Donaldson. Good citizens of Butler County and of the great State of Pennsylvania, thank you for coming out on a cold Saturday morning to support your right to bear arms.
I find it ironic that we have to come out to support our right to bear arms because firearms have been pervasive in our society since before we became a self governing, free, and independent nation. As a matter of fact, we would not have become the self governing, free, and independent nation when we did had it not been for a well armed population.
Over one-hundred and fifty years after the Thirteenth Amendment[1] abolished involuntary slavery and servitude in America; slavery is still a very sensitive subject, especially for “African” Americans. Much of this apprehension has its origins in an historical view that Africans and their descendants are somehow less civilized, less intelligent or preposterously less “evolved” from assumed animal ancestors than their white counterparts. Yet, instead of looks of derision or treatment as second class citizens, all Americans owe the men and women who were enslaved in America and their descendants a debt of gratitude equal to the gratitude bestowed upon patriots who fought to secede from England in America’s war for independence.
Anyone who has ever driven in Washington DC during rush hour, especially when parkways take on a literal meaning, know they never want to drive there during rush hour again if they do not have to. Washington gridlock traffic, as bad as it is, is a metaphor for legislative bills trying to pass between the US House and Senate.
American Founding Principles 