* * *
According to what they sent to me, it results from
a posting on Jackspotpourri made well over a decade ago. I have gone back and checked out that posting
and find nothing particularly objectionable in it. Going back did remind me that I was a much
better writer at that time than I am today.
Using the archive directory off to the right, check it out.
I suspect that possibly someone irritated by my
current postings figured out a way to engineer this to get back at me. They had to go back ten years to find
something barely subject to criticism. It
might even be the Russians who are constantly attempting to screw around with
the internet in this country and whose misleading photoshopping skills were
featured in the last posting.
Check it out: June 20, 2012, via the archives, off to the right on your screen. It’s the posting that begins with the word ‘cancer.’ My use of the Yiddish word ‘drek’ in that posting might even be the problem, but why did it take ten years for them to catch it? (My idea of setting up several ‘drek’ websites was short-lived and has long since been abandoned.) That posting, incidentally, also includes a magnificent piece of free verse by the late Sid Bolotin. Check it out! I believe that you can safely ignore Google Blogspot's warning.
JL
* * *
I Get Published … Again
My letter to the Palm Beach Post, mentioned
in the last blog posting, was published there on March 29. Too bad that most of the Florida legislature
is functionally illiterate. But almost
100,000 readers got to read it!
JL
* * *
About The Indictment
 |
| Stormy and Friend |
The terms of the long-awaited indictment by the Manhattan
D.A.’s office of the defeated former president, presently sealed, will come out when he turns
himself in next week. Until then, there
are other matters needing your attention. Read on.
JL
* * *
Guns – We Must Repeal the Second Amendment
There was another school shooting the other day. I won’t tell you about it. Just turn on your TV. This has become a regular and recurring
tragedy. It is time for action. We must reduce the availability of guns in
America. And that starts with the Second
Amendment, which reads as follows: ‘A well regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.’
In 2008, the United States Supreme Court ruled in D.C. vs
Heller that the final fourteen words of the Second Amendment, (starting with
‘the right of the people’) could stand alone by themselves and did not necessarily
have to refer to the militias mentioned in its first thirteen words. This misguided decision was written by the
late Justice Antonin Scalia who was joined by Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito,
and Kennedy, three of whom remain on the Court. (Kennedy is retired.)
All of their hands are soaked in blood, as well as those of subsequent appointees to the Supreme
Court who vote against gun control measures.
There is blood on all their hands.
Childrens’ blood.
It's time to take off the kid gloves and start dealing with
the heart of this problem realistically and not continue to fall into traps set
by politically motivated politicians, lawyers, and judges. No more fooling around. Too much blood has
been shed. Enough is enough. Let’s open our eyes to the source of the
problem, the Second Amendment.
It is time to repeal it! ‘REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT’ Don’t be afraid to say it.
The Second Amendment is obsolete and unnecessary. It was only added to the Constitution in exchange for the votes of the slaveholding states,
which feared federal military action affecting the core of their economies, slavery, in
order to insure the passage of the new Constitution in 1789. The
Civil War and the 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments settled that question, so the need for the Second Amendment no
longer exists.
The argument that individual Americans still need weapons in
case their government turns into a dictatorship is a fiction in our time
whereas in 1776 it might have been true.
But it is not true today. There are better ways to preserve democracy
today than having the weapons to start an unwinnable Civil War. They include a well-informed electorate, the protection of voting rights, and crippling legal penalties for malicious lying in the media.
Automobiles are, like guns, lethal weapons, and all fifty States require
their owners to be registered and their drivers licensed. Though difficult to compare, deaths from
gun-related incidents in the United States number about 46,000 a year while annual
deaths from automobile accidents are about 43,000. Why should guns be treated
differently from the way automobiles are treated? In the hands of the wrong people, both can kill,
and guns kill even more readily than can automobiles.
It is time for every weapon in the possession of anyone to be
registered with a government agency, just as car ownership and drivers’ licenses
are. There are more guns in this country than people! That must be changed. And of course, even before repeal of the
Second Amendment is accomplished, assault-type weapons must be banned
nation-wide. There is no place for them
outside of the armed forces.
It need not take years for the Second Amendment to be
repealed. All it takes is for a proposal of an
Amendment repealing the Second Amendment to be passed by a two-thirds vote in both Houses, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the
nation’s State legislatures.
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents must unite to secure those two-thirds votes in both Houses and do so quickly. The American people should make it clear that they will not vote for any Representative or Senator who does not support repeal of the Second Amendment. Once that is accomplished, similar pressure must be exerted on State legislatures. In fifty States, Americans should then make it clear that they will not vote for any State legislator who does not support repeal of the Second Amendment. And the place to start is right here and the time is right now. Today!
Don’t
walk away from this, calling it impossible.
It must be accomplished, just as the original thirteen colonies were
able to rid themselves of the British crown and the nation was able to rid
itself of slavery in 1865. Nothing is impossible.
The pressure on the House, the Senate, and ultimately on
State legislatures must be unrelenting. Millions must demonstrate throughout the
country and in the nation’s capital especially. Businesses and financial institutions which do
not support repeal of the Second Amendment must be similarly targeted. The American people must speak out. They have had enough. Thoughts and prayers are a joke. Dead school children are not.
 |
| Americans must demonstrate for repeal of the Second Amendment just as Frenchmen and Israelis have taken to the streets to make the views of their majorities clear. (The French demonstrated against pension reform and the Israelis demonstrated against Supreme Court reform.) Murders of school children are more serious than either of these issues justifying Americans taking to the streets! |
It should be made clear that individual States will still be
able to pass laws so that weapons can be available for legitimate purposes such
as hunting, sport shooting, and home or business protection but with the proviso
that all those guns must be registered. The days of toothless legislation must end. The hundreds of
millions of guns in the hands of Americans must be reduced and limited, so that
those with mental problems or violent tendencies cannot readily get their hands
on them.
I have two questions for you.
First, do you agree that the Second Amendment must be repealed?
Secondly, do you
have the courage to put a bumper sticker on your car reading ‘Repeal the Second
Amendment’?
I answer the first question with a resounding ‘yes,’ but
honestly, I am ashamed to say that I don’t have the guts to answer the second
one affirmatively, a sad commentary on the United States in 2023. That is a measure of the enormity of the task
before us, but the sooner we accomplish repeal of the Second Amendment, the
fewer children will be murdered in their classrooms.
Please pass this message on to everyone you know and ask them to do the same.
JL
* * *
Freedoms
Believe it or not, my comments about ‘Freedom –
Florida Style’ that appeared in the March 27 posting of Jackspotpourri were
written before I read the article about that State, its freedoms, and
mostly, its governor, that will appear in the May 2023 issue of the Atlantic
Magazine, covering the same territory.
It’s about two hundred times longer than what I wrote but well worth
reading.
The basketball season is drawing to a close and
baseball has barely started so even sports fans can easily find the time
to sit down and read this brilliant piece. And everyone else should do so, too!
Find it at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ron-desantis-florida-state-politics-gop/673489/ or just
CLICK HERE to learn what a British journalist found out about the Sunshine
State on a visit here, a possible preview of what might happen to the rest of
the country eventually. Oy!
JL
* * *
Housekeeping
Email Alert Bulletins: If you are not receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. ( You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com . )
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If you
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There’s
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