The Militant Moderate

Holding my mail in my hand returning from my mailbox one day last week, I noticed that the load is lighter than usual. Just a newsletter, a Medicare claims report, and one other startling letter. It jumped out at me. From the National Rifle Association of America, it was lettered NRA in big bold letters in the upper left corner. But it was the “FINAL NOTICE” in huge red letters at the top middle that got my attention.

Why am I getting a FINAL NOTICE from the NRA, I wondered? Am I now on a hit list maintained by this semi-militia, muscular bunch with guns? Am I receiving notice that I am a target, and that they have their many gun-sights trained on me? Must I mend my ways or face the consequences? Well, I do recall that I have written unkind things about a bunch of rowdies with guns showing up at political protests by the tea party crowd. Is that it, I wondered?

Am I receiving a “cease and desist” order to stop my nefarious and unfriendly verbal assaults on gun-toters – OR ELSE? They are threatening me, I thought, and I wonder what the “OR ELSE” really means.

Admittedly my image of the NRA is not a good one. In my mind I see a bunch of burly, bearded, surly guys with guns and ammunition belts, spitting tobacco juice. But then I recall that my beloved son in a suit and tie is a member.

Further, I remembered the elderly Charleton Heston standing before them holding up his rifle and dramatically declaring, “You’ll have to pry my gun from my cold dead fingers!” Then I thought, “At our advanced ages, I believe I could take him.” But, of course, he has passed on now. I wonder if they buried that gun in his handclasp. If so, there will be trouble at the Pearly Gates. They don’t allow guns up there.

Nevertheless, I continued my “woe is me” lamentations until I was inside in my chair opening the envelope. And, there to my wondering eye, were these words: “For years, NRA has asked patriotic Americans like you to join our cause.”

I am a patriotic American, they say. Well, it seems that they do not know me as well as I first imagined. Oh, yes, I am indeed a patriotic American, and I have my World War II service ribbons and good conduct medal to prove it. But, alas, I have not ordinarily exhibited the behaviors, nor held the opinions, that would give me such status in their organization.

They are giving me this “FINAL NOTICE” they say, because they only ask once. They go on to warn me the first of many times: “Unless you act now, your Second Amendment rights are certain to be dismantled and destroyed.” Now, I don’t own a gun, but that warning that I am going to lose my constitutional rights sounds foreboding enough to shake me a little.

They go on to tell me: “Your firearm freedoms and your hunting and shooting traditions are under attack like never before.” They say: “Right now, hundreds of anti-gun politicians in the U.S. Congress and the 50 state legislatures are casting votes, passing laws, and writing regulations that will decide the fate of your right to own a firearm.” I had never before imagined that such a horde of malicious, liberty-threatening politicians were after me.

Their mailing then goes on to name some of these “gun ban politicians” like Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi” who have an agenda to ban and limit guns, ratify a UN gun resolution, bankrupt American gun manufacturers, and close gun shops and gun shows. I noticed that all of those politicians conspiring against me and my constitutional freedoms were Democrats. Not one single gun-loving Republican was named an enemy conspirator against me.

That reminds me too that Sarah Palin, speaking to the NRA just this last week, said that President Obama intends to come after our guns. “He just can’t get enough support yet,” she said.

“Once I hear from you,” the letter went on, “I can walk right into your senator’s or congressman’s office and tell them that a new NRA member is watching their votes ….. and will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to defend our guns and our freedoms.” That business about doing “whatever it takes” worries me a bit. I am not quite ready to turn over to anyone a license to “do whatever it takes” on my behalf on anything, much less my rights to carry and shoot an AK-47.

Each of the last few years, we have had introduced in Oklahoma some pretty wild gun rights bills. We have some pretty wild legislators who are doing everything they can to please this organization, the one that is recruiting me as a reluctant member. It seems that these same folk will not be satisfied until they turn our towns, colleges, tech schools, and businesses into frontier cities with wild-west saloons, OK corrals, and gunfights. Oklahoma’s governor just vetoed another crazy “open carry” gun law.

Of course, the counter argument is that our streets are already full of marauding gangs with guns preying on businesses and citizens, and that gun carrying citizens will produce built-in peacekeepers – vigilantes ready to shoot it out with the hoodlums. This argument hardly holds water. Police say they can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys when both have guns.

This one citizen will feel safer if the only guns in the business he enters belong to the proprietor, the only guns in the theatre or concert hall he attends belong to the security guards, and the only guns in the house he enters belong to the homeowner. And, most certainly he would feel safer if the only guns on the streets were in the possession of the police. But that is just this one naïve, patriotic American citizen, who the NRA is recruiting.

Other than the laissez faire legal attitude of some legislators and gun rights folk about gun-toting rights and privileges, another thing that bothers me about their agenda is the unwillingness to make any reasonable compromises regarding automatic assault weapons and extreme ammunition. There is no defensible reason for private citizens to possess, carry, or use AK-47 assault rifles or other modified automatic weapons of a military style. There is no good reason for ordinary citizens to possess various upgraded “high kill, high tissue damage,” or explosive ammunition.

Before anyone hastily changes my designation from “patriotic American” to “socialist, pinko, liberal pig,” please allow me to explain that the basic position of this writer is the same as every organization or association of law enforcement officers, sheriffs, and police in the nation. I stand right with my patriotic brothers in blue and with those wearing the badge.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

How many of us one-time history scholars recall the term “mugwump?” While once so rich in meaning that it was found as an item on our American History examinations, it is now so lightly regarded that the MS Word dictionary spell check highlights it in red, indicating that it is not in its vocabulary.

For the unenlightened, or those with shorter memories, a “mugwump” was a fence sitter, unwilling to take a stand or a side on an issue. Thus, sitting on the fence, his “mug” was on one side and his “wump” was on the other. (Actually, Muggeowump was an Algonquin Indian word meaning “important person,” which became political in the election of 1884 when important Republicans bolted their party to support a Democrat for president.)

This writer has been something of a “mugwump” on Arizona, not ready and willing to come down hard on one side or the other.

In his pen role as the Militant Moderate, this writer has normally been unabashed in taking firm positions on the issues of the week. Usually there has been little equivocation in positions taken in this column against extremist elements within our political spectrum. But thus far this writer has not felt really comfortable in weighing in on the loud, clanging, noisy issue of immigration law in Arizona.

No similar reluctance would be felt if the usual and customary extremists in the Oklahoma legislature were to come up with a companion bill as Senator Terrill is talking of doing. Of course, all of us remember Senator Terrill as the author of most or all of our protective legislation against Oklahoma’s vast, locust-like horde of illegal aliens who threaten to drown our schools, overwhelm our hospitals, and run amok amidst our law enforcement with their hosts of criminals.

Sometimes it worries us that Senator Terrill seems to take such wide-eyed pleasure in persecuting those folk. He becomes so excited that he can scarcely talk, but nevertheless frequently finds a TV camera and does so.

Sometimes it may be necessary to enact laws and rules which are hurtful to certain segments of our society, but such should always be made with restraint and compassion. There is something basically wrong in taking pleasure from hurtful rule-making or law-making. Such people are troubling.

So, it is very troubling to see and hear the legislative sponsors of the Arizona bill as they vigorously defend what is obviously a harsh and hurtful bill. This bill appears to be not only harsh and hurtful, it appears to be mean-spirited. It is the latter that is more troubling. Mean-spirited people tend to offend and drive moderates away.

Unlike Oklahoma, Arizona is indeed a state with its government and its social services, as well as law enforcement, severely taxed by inbound undocumented immigrants and by the drug wars on the border, sometimes connected but not necessarily. For this factual condition, many of us want to give the citizens there and their leaders some slack. If they push the envelope or redefine the line some, we are prone not to rush to judgment. On the other hand, Oklahoma really has no valid excuse for harshness.

There are some very bothersome features of the Arizona enactments. First, listening to the conflicting views, there seems to be mean-spiritedness among those sponsoring and supporting the bill. These people seem angry, full of hate, and vindictive in their motives. They act callously and talk mean. Usually that is enough to put a moderate on the opposite side.

Secondly, there appears to be a lack of candidness and honesty on the part of those, like the governor, who approved the bill. It is difficult to understand how any logical person can look at the legislation and not see that racial profiling is required. One may sincerely disagree with lawmakers and the courts, and one may believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with racial profiling on the basis of empirical statistical data. However, one loses credibility when one tries to deny the obvious.

Like some it is difficult for this writer to believe that we must tolerate a sieve-like border. It is difficult to think that we cannot put armed personnel there to do what is necessary to prevent an unfettered flow of people, drugs, guns, and cash across that line.

Once that is said and done, it seems also that we should surely be able to devise humanitarian means of dealing with the undocumented alien workers already here. Obviously, this calls for some intense study, maybe some toughness, and a cooperative, bipartisan policy approach to the situation. Negativism of one party makes that seem beyond us on any big issue.

For an immediate reduction of tensions in Arizona, would these tea party conservatives there consider broadening the manner of the new law’s application to include themselves? The demand for “papers please” could be made universally – of ALL people, not just those who might look like illegal immigrants. That approach may meet constitutional muster, as with other laws. No selective enforcement. Apply the law to everyone.

We wonder what would then become the position of the radical tea party folk. One might expect a hue and cry about infringement of freedom, and all kinds of new conspiracy theories, if their law were applied to them. That could be a good lesson for all.

We might then conclude that if the law is not suitable for all of us to follow, then it is probably neither humanitarian nor constitutional to apply only to Hispanics.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate

Some of the material encountered in cyber space, either floated or directed by messaging, is quite airy, amusing, or really funny. Other material is quite inspirational. Still other gleanings prove to be informative and educational.

But some circulated material is drawn from the cesspool of coarseness and vulgarity. Some is like the seepage from an untended sore, full of smelly yellow pus. Some of it emanates from delusional minds. Still some comes as a vile seepage from within the human heart. Some starts with the distasteful condition of absent truth, and then acquires satanic qualities when applied for evil purposes.

The person who is the offending passer often poses a puzzle. They just don’t fit with the material. That misfit poses a conundrum.

Just today this writer received a pass-along e-mail detailing at great length how President Obama under another name and passport had traveled to various Muslim countries for nefarious purposes. It told how he was born by that name in Indonesia; how he had kept all his personal records secret and unavailable; how his education was financed by mysterious funds from Muslims; and more such “revealing” pseudo information. This came through the auspices of a dear 80-year old retired lady teacher, who has been a trusted friend for 20 years and known generally to have good sense.

A seemingly bright young 50-year old professional, a distant relative, sent three of the wildest messages of political attack on the president. These were wild to the point of weird, maybe a little crazy. Those did not fit with this man, but then he has gone emotionally “tea party” over politics.

Earlier in the week the following came through on a message board:

“I hate it when I wake up in the morning and Barrack Obama is still president. Only 999 days until this socialist imposter is out of OUR White House.” ----- (9,209 people had been recorded as “liking” that message.)

That message was sent along by an ardent republican friend of long standing, considered wealthy by most standards, who has always been nice.

There is a ninety year old retired school counselor and former grad student of the writer who forwards various “patriotic” and “religious” mailers. These are usually radical right wing republican or religious right wing in nature. Most contain conspiracy theories alleging facts which have been debunked on snopes.com as false and spurious attacks. Because of his age and because he thinks he is being patriotic and religious, this friend deserves courtesy. But he is passing perfidious material that should be stopped.

Most of these friends and acquaintances would obviously be considered “tea party” in their orientation. Statistics say that 18 percent of us are that, but some of us do not normally think of those people as our friends. In actuality it appears that probably two-thirds of republicans lean toward the tea party extreme, or more like 25 to 30 percent of our population. Further, this “tea party” rightist element has always been there. It is not new. Should we then be surprised that some of our friends are found there?

Looking under the dictionary.com site for a definition of “tea bagger,” some interesting statements came forth. One definition of “tea bagger” is:

“A whining fool shouting loudly for liberty but not willing to pay the bill.”

An accompanying sentence, illustrating use of the term, went as follows:

“After most American workers saw more money in their paycheck due to the lower tax rate, the tea-baggers at Fox News railed again and again about high taxes, but did not discuss how much Jesus hated hypocrisy.”

This source has spoken the truth quite eloquently. Previous writings of the Militant Moderate have sought to set forth the missing truth, lack of logic, and absence of reasoning in so many tea party talking points. Further, the outrageous and inflammatory rhetoric of that group is dangerous to the peace and tranquility of our country. Such talk leads to tragic actions, even if right-wing columnists and cartoonists try to make fun of that assertion.

But still we are ill-prepared mentally to classify our friends into that despicable category where their political sympathies appear to lie.

Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate