Charleston: It's not about guns. It's not an attack on Christianity. It's about racism and ignorance of history.

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Dylan Roof is a cracker. He's a backwoods, redneck, bigoted, ginger-ass cracker with a fucking Moe Howard haircut. He's the worst of us - and he does come from America's collective. Make no mistake. There are many more Dylan Roofs. Whether or not they have to gall to carry out their demented fantasies of "reclaiming 'our country'" is another story. but they're out there. They're also terrorists. They're as terrorist is ISIS, or Al Qaeda. He and his ilk should be labeled as such in the media. Their terror is a result of willful historical ignorance and revisionism.

Attack on Christianity? I've heard this too, and it's crap. He picked that church for a reason. It's a historically significant site. It was picked because it was a black church, not because it's a church. Period. Another reason this should be called terrorism.

There are too many people out there who cling to the notion that the Civil War was not about slavery, but rather was about "States rights." That's bullshit. The only state right named in articles of secession is that of slavery. Anyone who advances that is full of shit. It's a cognitive bait and switch to give that racism the cover of legitimacy by adding historical context. It's bullshit. I think it's ironic that Lincoln used the power of the Federal Government to hold the Union together, and subdue the Confederacy while leading the Movement to ratify the 13th Amendment. Now the "Party of Lincoln" currently is opposed to the Feds imposing anything. If Lincoln were alive today, he'd give the GOP leaders, and standard bearers a swift kick in the dick. (another example of the idiocy of looking at modern political parties through the prism of the 1850s - another story)

The Confederate flag also needs to go. From the end of the Civil War, through Reconstruction, and until the Civil Rights movement threatened the Jim Crow order in the 1960s, the Confederate Battle Flag was not used as a symbol of Southern "heritage." It was not added to southern State flags, and public grounds until then. It's a flag of racism, and bigotry because that's when it was resurrected as a symbol. The South, and Southerners have added real richness to us; blues, jazz, bourbon whiskey, Dean Smith, to name a few, but that flag is fucked up and needs to be put into the ashbin of history. It's been hijacked by bigots, and racists as their standard. 

My thoughts on guns are established, but they're not germane here. Any sensible limits on guns that most gun owners believe in (i.e. background checks) would not have prevented this. Let's not go down that rabbit hole. I only address it, because others have brought it up. It's way down the list. Ideas are more powerful then weapons, and these cracker-ass bullshit ideas need to be shown for the utter bullshit they are.

Thoughts on Memorial Day

It is interestingly ironic, and poetic, that the celebrations around Memorial Day are typically family gatherings, local parades, and relaxation among loved ones. As a remembrance of service people who gave ultimate sacrifice in honoring that call to serve, it only seems fitting that we spend the day enjoying carefree activities that exemplify American style freedom. I mean those that died in service did so defending that freedom.

I always think of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address when I think of Memorial Day. I know it wasn't presented on Memorial Day. Especially this last part:

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

People that serve, serve with a purpose. There's no other way to look at it. Even if someone only serves just to get money for education, they still serve. In doing so they all take an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies - foreign and domestic. It's a big deal to make that promise. By the same token we owe it to those making it, that what they're sent to do in that service honors the spirit of service captured - in my estimation - in the Gettysburg Address.

I've seen the photo on social media more times than I can count of the Marine handing a small boy the flag from his father's casket. War is the most vile, and extreme form of politics. Unfortunately the decisions around it are made by politicians, and they - regardless of affiliation - are nothing more than water boys. Whomever they're carrying water for influences that, and that's wrong. Every future kid, spouse, mom, dad, brother and sister are owed by we citizens that future sacrifices are done for that freedom and only that freedom. That's our obligation as American citizens. People that promise to defend deserve nothing less.