It’s really a shame that there are viewers of MSNBC that think it is a reputable news outlet. It is an outlet, but a circular muscle comes to mind when you consider what comes out of it.
Yesterday in Phoenix Arizona, there was a rally outside a place where President Obama was speaking. And Arizona happens to be an ‘open-carry’ state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it’s visible. A permit is required if the weapon is carried concealed.
Watch how the man carrying handguns at his side and an AR-15 over his shoulder is edited so tightly that you can’t tell that the guy is black. Then listen to reporterette, Contessa Brewer, suggesting that the people carrying guns are white racists.
there are questions about whether this has a racial overtones [sic] I mean here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists, or to their legs.
In true David Axlerod style, make up whatever you can, including the race card, to discredit anyone that disagrees with Obama’s policies. GE, through all its so-called news subsidiaries is nothing more than the propaganda wing of the West Wing.
Below are pictures of the man shown in the video, who is clearly a white man, with guns strapped to him.
Probably so, but with a twist. Whereas FOX News will present the Right side of things as well as the Left side, when compared to the NBC’s presentation of news, the presenting of the Right side makes FOX look to be slanted that way. Blatantly partisan, if you will. If NBC would do the same, then there would be no vacuum to fill and maybe their ratings wouldn’t be in the toilet.
My point in this post however, is the absolute creation of ‘news’ complete with a deliberate deception to present their spin.
In an ‘open carry’ state, if you get a crowd of several hundred people together, to see a dozen or so people ‘carrying’ is not out of the ordinary. But in this instance, their story line is that people carrying guns there were all white racists.
They attempt to put that label on any and everyone who carries a weapon legally and label it as a form of intimidation. More BS.
Now, if there were people there wearing white sheets or something, then yes, that would fit the storyline of this piece. But no, this piece was a double barreled attack on 1) people carrying guns, and 2) people who disagree with Obama’s policies are racists.
I saw this coming during the primaries. That if anyone disagrees with Obama if he were to win, then they would be portrayed as a racist of some sort.
I am an MSNBC viewer but have no illusions and realise that it has a very clear liberal/Democratic slant. The bulk of its new personalities are unapologetic liberals.
I view MSNBC much as I view FOX News. Blatantly partisan. Both outlets’ news personalities regularly drop idealism into their interviews and other journalistic efforts.
So Ross — we are in rare agreement. MSNBC is just as much the propaganda arm of the Obama administration as FOX was the propaganda arm of the Bush administration.
I can only reply to this by saying that whether or not you stand by our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights (as I imagine we both do), then it is not difficult for any reasonable person to see that an open carry law has a natural dampening effect on discourse and debate.
Because you exercise your rights, even in the state of Arizona, does not mean that you ought to exercise them together. This would be, I think, bullying the other party with the threat of force no matter how it is represented. To put forth a “leftie” viewpoint, here, I would say that it is far more common for “Conservatives” to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights, and that a cadre of armed and aggravated persons holding up a copy of the Bill of Rights at the rally is not only strange and foreboding, but it’s also a gross misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment and goes explicitly against the spirit of the Bill of Rights itself. You see, our illustrious forefathers intended this Bill to ensure that no one party (or parties) or foreign entity did not unduly sway the course of progress or self-governance by the States. In fact, I might argue that a well regulated Militia is only required when reasonable discourse falls apart and that the presence of hand guns and small arms at any rally is contrary to the spirit AND letter of the BOR. A militia is a separate entity from a long-standing army, and intended to make sure that the interests of the military and federal government do not heavily outweigh those of the various people who inhabit the wilderness and rural areas (i.e., the inhabitants of the various States).
Now, I see very well that one may argue that the pictures above represent the natural expression of individuals when confronted with pressure from the Federal government. That is beyond question and a reasonable reading (IMHO) of what is happening here and now in our great Nation. And it is fair to say that the founding fathers probably had no compunction about a reasonable and judicious use of the threat of force in staking a claim and defending one’s interests. I would take a constructionist rather than literalist reading of the Constitution and various documents penned by the great thinkers who thought this country up, and say that had they known that angry, armed (and I might argue HIGHLY suggestible AND scared) citizens might travel to a town hall meeting with semi-automatic rifles strapped to their backs, then they would have made a clearer separation of these two Rights.
An armed Militia is necessary to defend our borders and communities from invasion and control by foreign nations in times of war. We are not at war with each other in any literal sense. An armed Militiaman has no place in a town hall meeting where citizens and individuals come to speak their mind and air their grievances as equals. Many U.S. citizens do not feel the necessity of being constantly armed today, as they might have done in 1770 when a bear or a Prussian mercenary or a swarthy Savage lurked around every corner. And local and state and federal politics ought not to devolve into half or two thirds of the members of a community brandishing weapons in the hopes that the implications will be clear to those who don’t have them.
I know you to be a reasonable man, and one who exercises the rights guaranteed to him. If you and I were engaged in conversation about a precarious situation that needed both of our attention and in which we both had vested interests, I would hope and pray that your interests would not be represented with the threat of force implied by a gun in a holster at the small of your back. The logical conclusion, should something like that ever occur, is that the only way to be a represented citizen in this country is to own a gun, and that it is not reason and logic that guides a democracy but violence, real or imagined.
Good post – see you in a couple of hours.