Monday 18 March 2013

That Satan Guy

The Bible series was again on last night, via the History Channel.  The curious episode was the moment when the devil came up.

So you gaze at the face for a minute, and you have this feeling....it's Obama.  It's actually an actor, but you just have that momentary feeling....Obama....Satan.

An accident?  Well, the producers just say it's a minor appearance thing and nothing else.

Me personally?  I'm probably locked onto that image for the rest of my life.  It's too bad that they couldn't get GW Bush for a week and have him play Noah.  I might have had better feelings for "Noah" Bush.  This satan guy?  Yeah, it kinda bothers me.

Note: Now, a true Baptist would cite various references in the Bible that Satan can take many forms, and if you think you are looking at President Obama (Satan), then it's a spiritual thing and you might have a point there.

The Crazy Law

This week will put the Senate and the mass media into an odd position.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC) has put a bill on the Senate table that says if you are declared mentally incompetent....you have to be put into the national database, for gun purchases.  You are then immediately disqualified from owning a weapon.

You can see some complications here, which the mass media will have to either ignore the bill entirely or pretend that it would hinder the mission at hand.

The Democratic Senators?  They have to pretend the bill doesn't exist.  Otherwise, you start to dig into much broader questions.  For example....if a person is mentally incompetent....can you even allow them to vote? Or how about the purchase of alcohol?  A driver's license?  Could someone accuse a member of the Senate being mentally incompetent and then have them forced from the Senate floor?

After a couple of days....the mental health community will weigh in, and condemn the law.  It's just not right or fair.  The crazies need to retain their gun rights.  At that point...you will shake your head and ask if the mental health community is crazy itself.

The truth?  There's probably a million Americans who fall into some category of being mentally incompetent....either temporary or permanently.  We could run around the US and accuse a dozen people in every community of a thousand folks or more.  Using Graham's law....you'd just appear in front of some local judge....recite the federal law (if passed), and then folks declared incompetent.    They wouldn't have to worry....no one will ship them off to a state facility....they'd just start to lose their rights as an American.

You can sense that a bunch of political folks are busy....doing mostly nothing....at a turbo speed.....and ending up with some results of questionable value.

If I lined up the sixteen mass shootings of 2012 and drilled into the mentally competency of the sixteen shooters....I think more than half would have been declared crazy.   So there is a point to this.  The question is.....just what else gets attached to this in the years to come.

Passage of the law?  Forget about it.  I just don't see more than two Democrats lining up to support this. And the media will not discuss the matter at all.