Shameless Dan Carlin plug

One of my favorite podcasters is Dan Carlin.  His Hardcore History poscast gives us an in depth picture of a point in history, and currently he's going through the hamburger mill that was WWI.  I've learned a lot about that war I don't think I was ever taught in school, mostly about how gruesome the fighting was.

His Common Sense podcast focuses on current events.  It's usually shorter than an hour, but is highly insightful.  His most recent podcast, Show 286 - Dissin' & Dueling accentuates this point.  After listening to Dana go off on the religion of Islam, Dan is a bit of fresh air and brings a lot of thought to the mix.  I won't go over any of his points, because I wouldn't do them justice, although the fact that in this country in not the too distant past all the way back to the founding fathers (Alexander Hamilton shot in a duel with Burr) our history is full of people being offended, and taking someone else's life.

Dana has not been as thoughtful, or insightful.  I had never heard of #illridewithyou campaign until Dana mentioned it.  But she dismissed it because these same people should have been riding with Charlie Hebdo, instead.  While I do not tolerate acts of terrorism, I'm not lumping all 1.6 billion Muslims in with them, so Dana's comments were not helpful in my opinion.

Do you think people like Dana would lose their minds if Charlie Hebdo were in America and had not been attacked?  As in, the content of Charlie Hebdo isn't quite suited to Dana's sensibilities (although she seems to get a kick out of their cartoons critical of Muslims).  And I didn't catch Dana's TV show, but did she show any cartoons critical of Christianity?  Or Jewish?

Let's forget the fact that the policemen were armed, but outgunned, and one was himself a Muslim, something Dana also never seemed to bring up. I guess the big takeaway here is listen to more Dan Carlin.  You will come out more sane in the long run, in my opinion.

I've read a lot of stupid things...

I've read a lot of stupid things in my time.  Just today, I read that someone at Fox News reported that the Obama administration was outlawing doughnut sprinkles. You read that right. The truth is, Fox got their story from a satire website without realizing it.  You can't make this stuff up.

Of course this pales in comparison to what I just read in Hands Off My Gun.  Here's a bit from chapter 7:

Martin Luther King Jr. was denied a gun permit as a result of gun control law put into effect by white male Democrats.  Out of all the law-abiding, peace-loving people, this man was denied the means to protect himself while those who wished to do him harm for believing in equality were allowed to carry.  Dr. King was disarmed by Democrat laws. That is just one in a series of examples of the explicit racism behind left-wing gun grabs.

There is plenty wrong with what was said there. To start with, the way this is written, you would think Dr. King was denied gun ownership. Nothing is further from the truth. Dr. King had guns in his home, some would say he had an arsenal, when he requested that concealed carry permit. So really, he wasn't denied gun permits.  What he was denied was the right to conceal carry. That was in Alabama, in 1956. He would have also had to file in Tennessee in 1968, since that is where he was shot. And forget that he was shot from across the street, and a concealed carry would not have done much to protect him that day.

It wasn't long after he filed for a concealed carry permit that he decided that his gun ownership and peace movement were not compatible. He not only got rid of his guns, his bodyguards were also disarmed. Since Dana railed against celebrities having the right to have bodyguards with guns to protect them, Dana should be happy about that development.

The other issue I have with Dana's statement is the mixing of the terms Democrat, and left-wing when referring to the south in the 1950s. Strom Thurmand was a Democrat at the time. The Southern Dixiecrats changed political parties fast when Democrats Emanuel Celler, introduced the civil rights act, and Lyndon B. Johnson, signed it into law.  The south has always been conservative, and always will.

So it is ludicrous to say Democrats, like it is the Democratic party of today, and flat out a lie to say the left-wing disarmed Dr. Martin Luther King. Truth be told, it was Dr. King himself that disarmed Dr. King.  Is Dana this dumb? I don't think so, but more and more it sure looks like she's hoping the readers of this book are.