Are the Mumbai attacks proof enough that banning guns is no good?

I have yet another point that became once again even more evident with the recent attacks on hotels in Mumbai. Now, the 5 star hotels in Mumbai are just like any 5 star hotel in New York, which are the same as any building in America in this regard: Approaching any building today in the world, one is greeted with a sign that reads: "This building bans guns in these premises." The purpose of these signs is to hopefully keep us safer from vicious attacks with armed weapons. However it does nothing but put us in mortal danger by un-arming law obiding citizens who could defend from people with grave intentions. But wait... How could ALLOWING people to carry guns make us SAFER? This is where the Mumbai attacks come in. This is what happened in a nut shell: A hotel full of people who are law obyding citizens, occupied the hotel. As they do obey the law they wouldnt think of carrying guns, as they would not like to be arrested. Then, terrorists who could give a damn less about the "ban gun" signs storm the hotel with a mission to kill. Thanks to these wonderful signs, we disarmed anyone who could help save the day, prevent murder, and stop the terrorists from doing so. The bad guys still won, and are winning still, as they are still in control of half of Mumbai. Good people simply waited in the dark, under their beds counting the seconds until enivetably being "picked off."

Now here is another way this situation could have played out. If we were to remove the gun bans, yes the terrorist attack may still occur. However with the removal of the ban, perhaps one out of 25, or even one out of 50 good guys would have an armed weapon. In a situation such as that in Mumbai, there is at least a more even playing field. When armed terrorists knock on a persons hotel room, instead of surrendering, one may fight back against them.

Mumbai-Indian Taj hotel bombed... Yet another prime litmus of blowback

Well, I just came up to Lutsen lodge, and turned on CNN only to see this tragedy. In Mumbai, India, (the worlds largest democracy) three luxury hotels were over taken by "Islamic militants." As of now, 87 people are dead with 186 injured. The militants asked for passports in order to identify American and British victims. Throughout the day, we have seen videos of blood scattered throughout the streets of India, along with hostages standing motionless in the window sill. As the day progressed, we heard the same story flashed across the screen of our televisions: No one has any idea how or why this happened, and that it is a tragedy. As the evening came about, and morning dawned in India, we have heard several witness testimonies pressed upon us telling us the same thing. For example, a CNN news correspondent Rohit Chandavarker who had told us about his experiences staying at the hotel previously, that there was a lack of security forces, and no one had conducted searches, and the area wasn't engulfed in a police state allegedly providing a security blanket. We do not hear the true story: this is yet another example of the ramifications of the aggressive foreign policy, and our overly belligerent military occupation of the middle east.

Now at this time, some of you are likely be disgusted at my outrageous statement. You may think of how I am an unpatriotic traitor of the United States, and the admirable values it stands for. I encourage you to hear me out.

This isn't the only time a terrorist attack has occurred recently. We have seen countless attacks by the same people on a frequent basis in this region, as well as in other areas such as westernized European countries, Russia, and Euro-Asia. We hear the same stories: these Islamo- fascist militants are attacking American and British people as we are "free"and "rich." It is clear now that this is not the reason. They aren't radical religious terrorists, pursuing holy war. The majority of these terrorists are average middle eastern people who want to fight back against the forces invading their countries. I believe strongly in what one of the greatest presidents of our country had said: "We do not understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics"-Ronald Reagan. Our first invasion of the middle east was during World War I. The United States, along with British Allies, invaded Balkan territories, and it has continued since then. We began to establish long term military bases, which have grown rapidly since then. As our presence has grown more aggressive, and it began to affect the lives of middle eastern people, they formed groups to rebel against our military. These groups are what we know as terrorists. They began using force continuously in hopes we would listen, and remove ourselves from their countries. We didn't. Up until the start of the new millennium, it appeared that we may have started to cohere to these ideas, and began to exercise them. Then came 9/11/2001-one of the most tragic days in the history of our country. I will not go into whether our own government manufactured 9/11 or if it was terrorists, but either way the message was clear: The people wanted us out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and the other 730 military bases we had set up around the country. Instead we began a long term invasion of Iraq. Since then terrorist attacks have dramatically escalated, and thousands more have died and it will continue so long as we continue down this path.

After reading this, some may be thinking: but how can we be sure that they just want us out of their country, and not to kill us out of hatred for freedom? The answer is simple. What is say for example... China decided to invade our country, and set up 730 permanent military bases in our country. What if it has continued for 100 years, and their army continually murdered us with impunity. I think we the people of the United States would rebel by forming militant groups of our own, and we may just attack China, and the countries that were occupying our land. That is preciously what our founding fathers did in 1787. In conclusion, it is imperative that we make our judgements from this point on in our history based not just solely on our perception, but on how the rest of the world will perceive it, and respond to it. If we do this, the rest of the world will look to us once again not with fear in their eyes but love in their hearts, as they will admire us once again for the virtues for which our founding fathers died for: liberty, justice, and peace.

NATO and the Georgia conflict...

So today I had my first high school debate! Eventually I did okay, although I did expect to do better. The topic we debated was "Resolved that by December 2008, we should offer Membership Action Plans (MAP)'s to Georgia and Ukraine. As this was the topic, I decided that I would discuss the topic of Georgia and Russia, along with NATO. Although many see this topic outdated, I think it is still quite relevant, although the mainstream media seems to have forgotten all about it. The fact remains that Russia is still present in Georgia, and for one specific reason: oil. The Baku Supsa -pipeline that runs across all of Georgia, and an even larger source, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, that cuts through the bottom half of of Georgia. Russia obviously invaded Georgia in the hopes of controlling some of these oil reserves. Although British Petroleum (BP) owns the pipeline, Russia now has control of the amount available to BP. Many may not know about this, but "coincidentally" Russia only agreed to a cease fire with Georgia after they had occupied territories which allowed access to the oil lines. So why is this dangerous?? In the approximate words of Glenn Beck "who needs nuclear weapons, when you can control the majority of Europe's energy supply with a turn of a knob" So what can we (the U.S.) do about the situation?? Well as a libertarian, I firmly believe that the U.S. should remove itself from NATO, along with the United Nations, (U.N.) However I concede that getting the U.S. out of these entangling alliances is not possible to do quickly, it will take time. In the short term, I believe it is our duty to provoke NATO, along with the U.N to provide economic relief, and low scale military support, to the point that Russia can no longer occupy the energy reserves. This may appear as a departure from my core libertarian believes (which say we should not use our military unless it is a direct threat to us). However, this is not so as... it actually is a threat to us. If Russia not only regains its former soviet sub-nations, but in effect gains control over a HUGE portion of Europe's energy supply, then our main allies would bend to the will of a country moving back towards communism. That alone is a serious threat. Even Ronald Reagan who was anti war to the core was aware of the unimaginable ramifications of allowing Europe to fall the the former Soviet Union.

Wake Up!

When president elect Obama was chosen by the American People, some were ecstatic, some were heartbroken. I for one was indifferent because as in the words of the Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr "There's not a dimes worth of Difference between the two" And frankly hes right. BOTH McCain and Obama supported the Freddie and Fannie bailouts, BOTH want to increase the budget! This was the choice the establishment presented us with:big and bigger! Corrupt, and More Corrupt, and Socialist and more Socialist! America, it is time to wake up! The Republicans, and the Democrats are the same party! We need a new direction...

When this election started in 2007, I was a hard core conservative Republican. I supported Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompsen, and Mitt Romney in that order. As each dropped out, I supported the next one. It wasn't until Mitt Romney dropped out, that I was willing to look at another option: Ron Paul. Up until this point, I took Sean Hannity's version of who Ron Paul is for truth. To sum it up, Ron Paul is a "liberal infiltrating our party." However, after Romney dropped out, I was so convinced not to vote McCain, that I joined "The Revolution" His message opened me up to a whole new field of ideology. It didn't take long for me to drop my republican, establishment government ways-libertarian principles just well...clicked! It all made sense, and to put it bluntly, I was enamored to the principles the founders of our country established. These libertarian values will always be true to my heart.

You may be wondering "What are these principles" Well I don't blame you for not knowing. The Media has ignored us almost entirely, and the Republicans and Democrats have made sure you wont hear our voices. I will get into that later, but first our issues:

The Libertarian can easily be summarized by their slogan: Less Government, Less Taxes, More Freedom! Also, many summarize it as socially liberal, economically conservative. These are both true, and many other definitions are true as well. Either way, the message is true. We want to return this country to our founding principles, the government stays out of our lives as much as possible. Unfortunately, we have a long ways to go before we succeed. The reason for this is that almost everybody has been working against us. One manner in which we have been worked against is through the bi-partisan plague infiltrating governing bodies. They mask their true goals with rhetorical statements such as "we must come together" so "we can do more" for the people. The only reason our system is enveloped in bi-partisanship is simply to make absolute certain that it will never become a tri-partisan situation. You see, through bi-partisan support, congress can pass ridiculous ballot access laws for instance, meaning a third party must work endlessly to pay fees, and collect tens, and even hundreds and thousands of signatures, and turn them in before a deadline. Each state varies in their laws, so it is ever more difficult. This is however, not the only obstacle facing third parties. Once they collect, and turn in the signatures much can go wrong. When Bob Barr of the Libertarian Party was attempting to turn in his ballot access signatures, the government building were closed due to Hurricane Gustav. When they re opened the building, they denied him the right to turn in his signatures as it was considered "late". In West Virginia, the secretary of state claimed that he had fallen short about 250 signatures. About three weeks later a previously "confidential" memo was released stating that they had "lost" about 50 sheets of ballot access petitions. Worst of all was in Pennsylvania, when even after Bob Barr turned in his signatures, and was approved for the ballot, the establishment decides they might be in trouble. In this case, John McCain's GOP decided Barr was a threat to McCain winning the state, and decided to sue Barr for no particular reason. The Judge ruled in favor of Barr, but a week after the ruling, the secretary of state released a statement saying they would not obey the court order to place Barr on the ballot. The state supreme court would not hear an appeal.

And what happens when an establishment candidate misses the ballot access petition dates, for example?? In Texas, Bob Barr was the only candidate to turn in the signatures on time. However when Barr wished to file a case against McCain and Obama, the court didn't even allow him the right to state his case! Apparently if you are of the 2 major parties, you are above the law.

But who is to blame for this? The truth lies with us. We the People of the United States of America allowed this to happen! We have been capitulating! It must stop! WE must hold our politicians, and government to a higher standard! Our government IS out of control, and we must stop it! The only way is for us to rally together for the next election. Conservatives, Libertarians, and Independents must rally together under one candidate, and bring real change, by restoring this country to the one our freedom seeking founders envisioned.