There's your problem!

Let me see - what in the world to make of this?

20 Arrested After Protest Outside Donald Trump Event In Orange County Turns Rowdy

1.  Rowdy?  Rowdy?!  I'm not a Trump fan (but would vote for Elmer Fudd before I would vote for Hillary), but why is it when a Trump supporter confronts someone (pick your story), they are "violent" while anti-Trump protesters who smash LE car windows and such are "Rowdy"?

Oh, Huffington Post - how you do go on!

Some quotes:

- “I’m protesting because I want equal rights for everybody, and I want peaceful protest,” Daniel Lujan told the Los Angeles Times.

Please someone ask him if his desire for equal rights includes rights like the second amendment!  Folks who want open borders, unfettered immigration, free education, accessible legal abortion, and the right to use the bathroom that suits their fancy somehow always stop their support for rights just short of the ones they don't like (you know, the ones that are actually in the Bill of Rights).

 - Back window has been smashed out of a Costa Mesa police cruiser. Protester: "I think Donald Trump did it!"

How clever!  Liberal people wonder why other people might want to carry a firearm.  "Why would you want to do that?".  Because people like this rowdy little prankster think that if they disagree with you it is okay to F*ck your shit up.  But it's not even Trump's shit - it is our shit, the taxpayers shit that these little cherubs mess with.  And these are the urchins on your streets - so you go give them a group hug if you want; I prefer to be ready for the rowdy little prick who thinks he can dick with me because he's having a bad day.

- Watch live: Protesters try to overturn Costa Mesa patrol car outside Trump rally http://on.ktla.com/0zvVo

Oh those kids!  They just bein' rowdy.

And, of course, highlighting Huffington's fair and balanced unbiased reporting of the news:

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

I suppose this is the justification for calling the protesters "rowdy".  This candidate says things no one likes, does not fit our mold, is evil beyond belief and so on...so that's why we wrote a story making protesters damaging city property sound like high school kids playing grab ass in the gymnasium.

Morons.

OMG - nature is violent!

Bursting many liberal bubbles and myths about the universal peaceful nature of all things, video shows a pair of eagles bringing a small cat to lunch - er, for lunch.

See the story and video here - if you really want to.

Predators are predators.  We all know liberals like to imagine that this is not true.  Well, actually they think it is true about people they do not like (WASPs and gun owners) but refuse to believe it about those who are most likely to be predatory.  Sorry, but if you deny the evidence before your eyes, then you are willfully foolish.

Making infants of other cultures

Let's get clarity here.

The idea that we must ban firearms because certain cultures have a high prevalence of gun violence is like saying "Certain cultures are not equipped to participate fully in a free and democratic society where there are rights and responsibilities".

Such is the implicit message of gun control fans like Mitch Landrieu and Hillary Clinton (post noted yesterday) to consider:

1. In suggesting that we must ban guns - guns that have been around for hundreds of years - because people of certain cultures are killing each other in large numbers in gang and drug-related violence (while the overall murder rate in the country has declined) these politicians are asserting that certain groups are not capable of acting in a civilized manner if they have access to certain tools or objects.  This is certainly the case Governor Landrieu of Louisiana seemed to be making in his "passionate" speech in his majority black city.

This seems an incredible contradiction for them:  Liberals want to be inclusive, they value diversity, "We are all the same."  Consider the furor over books like "The Bell Curve" or any other research on ethnic differences in abilities.  It violates the liberal sensitivities to suggest that there are inherent differences in cultural or social fitness. Yet, here they are, making an argument (because it suits their desired position on guns) - a specious disgusting argument - that undermines that very idea, that says some people are not ready to live among us.  They want us to believe that certain cultures or races are too childlike to be able to behave in civilized ways and that the only way we help them is to eliminate dangerous elements from their environment.  In essence we are to treat them like children; lock up the guns and playboys!

I am not African-American. But I know how I feel when they me tell that I cannot be trusted to carry a firearm because someone else misuses theirs.  Hence I can only try imagine what it would feel like to liberal's minority supporters who are being told they are a violent child-like group that cannot be trusted to live in harmony as long as there are firearms available.  They cannot control themselves. They need Hillary or some other high society, well-to-do lilly-white, liberal politician, one who has round-the-clock armed security and lives behind walls and guarded gates, to tell them how to protect their culture and community. And, of course, the rest of us need to give up rights if there is someone else who cannot live civilly with that right - right?

Not going to happen.

So which is it?  Can we all live in a civilized society, co-exist, and be trusted to act like adults with our rights and all the adult tools and toys that come with it?  Or do we need to define certain groups who are not capable of that?  Should that be a disqualifying entry put on a background check?  The would be discrimination.  If so, then we need to consider how it changes our nation, our society, our culture, when we define our rights and responsibilities on the basis of the least capable among us.  Either we are all capable or we are not.  Pandering politicians need to decide.

A tangent:  Isn't it funny how when America went into other nations trying to build democracy and spread freedom, Bush and his neocon friends became the but of jokes as it became clear that not all cultures were ready for or even truly desired such freedom and such a form of government.  You take the dictatorial tyrannical cap off of the bottle and all hell breaks loose.  The hubris of America politicians, believing that everyone wants to be like us, wants what we have.

Now, year later, in the face of that failure and the bemoaning of such interventionism, we have of course, found a new answer.  Take in large numbers of members of those cultures into the society we have here - somehow expecting that they will be ready for or desire it, that this will not change the essence of our culture.

Nothing is idiot proof...

So, here is another tale of careless people putting the rights of others in jeopardy because some other people think that the only things we should be able to do or own are those that are "idiot proof" or "criminal proof".  We should know by now that the idiots and criminals will always defeat that strategy. I personally do not care to live in a country where the most foolish, criminal, or incompetent among us determine what we can do, whether through their own carelessness, criminality, or policy preferences.

Then there's this interesting piece at Breitbart.  

Here is that same idea:

Hillary said, “Too many young people, in particular, are turning to guns to settle disputes, grievances, resentments. We have got to help our young people understand, guns are never an answer, and there have to be other ways, and that’s going to take all of us, working in our schools, working through our churches and our houses of worship. We’ve got to break the grip of the gun culture on our young people, because the number one leading cause of death for young African-American men, are guns. It outranks the next nine, together. So, this is a health issue, a safety issue, a cultural issue, and I’m going at it from the very first day. I’m going to keep talking about it, and we’re going to make it clear, that this has to be a voting issue. If you care about this issue, vote against people who give in to the NRA and the gun lobby all the time.”.  

1.  Guns are never the answer to setting disputes, grievances or resentments.  And, in fact, law-abiding citizens never do that.  No legal gun owner wants to do that.  

They all know that. even Hillary knows that, because she goes on to say:

2.  The number one cause of death in African-American men is guns.  Indeed it is.  So we are back to the idea that the lesser among us, be they careless, ignorant, criminal or negligent, are the standard by which all will be judged. I am not African-American.  I am not in a gang.  I am not a criminal.  I do not use firearms to settle disputes.  I resent the fact that Hillary and others believe that, because certain people cannot handle their rights appropriately no one should have them.

3.  She is right - it is a cultural issue.  Not one of gun culture, but crime culture, a culture that condones solving one's disputes with violence, whether by beating, stabbing, or shooting.  Address that culture, the culture that condones such violence - and leave my culture, rights, and firearms alone.

Mass shooting in Ohio

All I have to say, having read all the reactions to a criminal (or criminals) committing a crime is it a good thing whoever did it, didn't bludgeon them with a baseball bat and set the houses on fire or we would never see another baseball game or have a cookout!

Those damned guns, roving gangs of them, indiscriminately committing acts of violence.

Mom shoots child

So, a mom "handling a gun" negligently shot her 2 year-old son when he apparently "startled" her.

"The woman said her 2-year-old son walked up behind her Saturday afternoon while she was holding the weapon, and she turned and accidentally fired the gun, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch."

So, let's be clear:  Handling a loaded gun?  Not on the range, not being assaulted, no need for defense. In the home, "holding a weapon" clearly with her finger inside the trigger guard.

Mom is stupid and negligent. No excuse for it and it is tragic that her son had to suffer this.  But, please do note that the gun did not shoot him, his negligent mother did.

But what I wanted to remark on was a comment made to the article:

"Mo guns, mo incidents of accidental shootings. Gun proliferation does not make us safer."

Thought this might be worth sharing.

You see, gun control devotees, when confronted by the data that show that as gun ownership has increased, gun crime (and in particular homicide) has decreased, always say "correlation is not causation."  [I have not bothered to post a graph of those data - plenty are available]. So given this is an inverse correlation, indeed we cannot say that more guns "cause" less crime (although a longitudinal pattern gives some sense of the possibility).  But let's be clear; because it is an inverse correlation we can, with some degree of certainty, say that increased gun ownership does not lead to increased crime.  The data certainly provide more support for the possibility that "mo guns" might make us safer than the converse.

But to the point of this story, the same goes with the relationship between gun ownership levels and accidental deaths among children due to firearms (in the figure above).  As can be seen from those data, over the past 30 years, as gun ownership rates have steadily climbed, the rate of firearm-related accidental deaths among children has decreased. No suggestion that increased gun ownership causes increased accidental deaths among children. This is a case of a negligent owner, not an indictment of a class.  In fact, just as with this anecdotal evidence, there are many stories of "good guys with guns" saving lives.  Gun control advocates do not accept those as proof of concept and neither should anyone in this case.

So, given the easy access to data that show otherwise, why do people - especially people of certain political leanings - cling to these erroneous ideas; that the proliferation of gun ownership has led to more crime and more death? I suspect it is because, in years gone by, a negligent gun-owning mother who shot her son in the hand would not have made the news.  Folks in podunk would not have heard about it.  Even when such accidents were more prevalent, as the data show, we knew much less about it, heard much less about it.  Now such news is more accessible which makes some people think the phenomenon is more prevalent. And, surprise, everyone's hair is on fire.

In psychology we would call this an error in judgment based on the availability heuristic.  That is, an error in estimation of prevalence or typicality based on the accessibility or availability of certain information or ideas. If one wants to see the power of such errors, they need look no further than the comments on liberal websites that follow the gleeful reporting of each and every gun-related story. In fact, it is their goal - to make people believe something that is not true.

Dark paradise.

Sanders, Sandy Hook and PLCAA

So, Huffington continues to have articles suggesting that "Bernie Sanders Stumbles On Guns And Sandy Hook Families".

Not worth going on at to much length about it, as I have before, but wanted to single out one comment among many that expressed the same theme (although there were a lot supporting Sander's perspective).

So, Mr. Commenter says:

"If an appliance company sold a toaster that was implicated in the deaths of 2 people, they would be sued off the face of the earth. If a drug company marketed a drug that they knew was unsafe, they would be sued into oblivion. If a car company sold cars that they knew were unsafe, they would be fined and sued to high heavens. But not the merchants of death that are the gun manufacturers. They get a pass. You have an odd sense of justice."

My thoughts were:

First, just love the histrionics:  "Merchants of Death!" Are you sure this isn't Hillary?

But you need a better example!  If the toaster blew up and hot flying metal and bagels killed 2 people due to its faulty construction, then a suit may be warranted (of course, there could still be operator negligence - too many bagels, wrong slot, etc.). If junior grabs the perfectly functioning toaster by the cord and bludgeons 2 people to death with it because they wouldn't leggo his eggo, then not so much. Anything can be lethal in the hands of a dedicated killer (go ahead, search for "drano murders"). Bet that's unsafe for human consumption!

Key words here - "Knew to be unsafe".

A firearm, particularly functioning as it is designed to, does not kill anyone any more than a perfectly functioning automobile (or toaster).  It requires a person intent on killing and such a person intent might use any of a variety of tools - shall they all be illegal or should all manufacturers be sued for this use. We will, for the time being, not go to the next step and talk about whether the killing is justified or not.

It is convenient for some people (okay, liberals) to deny the mess that our culture has become in favor of demonizing inanimate objects that have been in existence for centuries and are more regulated now than they have ever been in our history.  Guns require humans. The fact that several decades of liberal social policy have led to the violence we see now is an uncomfortable truth - it says something about our society that we do not want to hear - so let's stick our fingers in our ears and blame something else. When that doesn't help (as it has not in other countries), we can be assured that someone will move on to even more restriction of rights.

Meanwhile, gun control groups, while they like to use the term "gun safety" continue to work against gun industry groups who get grants to provide trigger locks and the like.  Adam Lanza stole a perfectly functioning gun, killed his mother, its owner, then the children at Sandy Hook Elementary, then himself.  He did it.  A good trigger lock would have made the firearm non-functional.  What is it with you people?

BTW, when will we be suing the manufacturers of predator drones, cruise missiles, MRAPS, and the like?

HTH...

So, Huffington Post is up in arms (along with a multitude of their commenters) regarding a law in Tennessee that will allow "therapists and counselors to reject patients they feel would violate “sincerely held principles.”

Lots of things to work through here:

- I hate to disagree with the ACA (well, not really), but requiring therapists or counselors to see people with whom their values clash can be fraught with disaster.  In training therapists I always make it clear that they have to have their own values in check when working with clients and if they cannot, then they should refer out.

Let's be clear here - this is not like refusing to bake wedding cakes for people, which means throwing some batter together and adding happy slogans.  Therapy requires a relationship, it takes a lot on the part of both participants and if values-based differences will either stifle client progress or even have iatrogenic effects, then a good therapist can and should always decline to work with a client and refer them out.  The first ethical tenet in therapy, as in medicine, is do no harm. So to say that a counselor cannot refuse treatment based on “personally held values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors” is absurd.

In truth this depends on why the person is seeking treatment. Suppose a gay man seeks treatment with a provider for depression.  If the man's sexuality is not a focus of treatment, then the values are not an issue.  suppose that the individual is depressed because his partner has HIV?  Do we really want to force a practitioner who is not accepting of homosexuality to see this person?  Do we not think it will impact treatment?  If it does impact it negatively and there should be litigation, can this practitioner claim that the ACA would not allow him to refer this client out?

- Concerns about "clients of color" were also expressed - but this is not the same issue as one of "values".  Refusing to see a client from a different racial or ethnic group is not the same.  If that client holds values that are not consistent with those of the therapist and that discrepancy will impact therapy in a negative way, then a referral should be required.

Therapists are ethically and legally bound to practice only within the scope of their expertise and competence. Hence, a gay man seeking services for relationship difficulties may find that someone with differing values will also not be competent in working with gay relationships.

I have to wonder - in a world and time where so many need "trigger warnings" and "safe places" why then would someone insist on being able to see a therapist who does not share their beliefs, who may consider their sexuality as perverse? Why would they want to force a therapist to see someone when she knows she would not be helpful to them.

As a psychologist, I may be more than willing to work with any client who comes in my door - as long as they are seeking help I am qualified to give.  But that is a personal decision.  No, none of us should be free to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity.  However, not all professional therapists  - even those who may be very good at it - may be capable of putting personal values, beliefs or feelings aside.  That is not a case of "I will not see you because you are black."  It is a case of "I am not the best person to see you because I disagree with your goals or your lifestyle."

It may not be what I would have to do, but I respect a therapist who is self-aware enough to know when they should not see a client.

In truth, this idea that therapists should have to see anyone is an unfortunate consequence of the social justice movement.  It takes only the needs of the "oppressed" into account, without considering the rights or needs of others. Suppose a man comes to therapy with his issues being his wife will not be sufficiently subservient to him.  Suppose the only therapist in his area is a feminist who sees this as a repulsive idea.  Is it then her role to enlighten him, regardless of the reason he is seeking services, to reeducate or indoctrinate him?  Should she see him because she knows what society and social justice would say is best for him or should she refer him elsewhere because his  goals is not consistent with her values?  In today's climate, it is likely she would see him so she could make him fit her ideal.

Let irrationality rule...

The vast majority of liberals are irrational (and ignorant) when it comes to firearms.  I know it is a worn-out cliche, but there is no other way to explain their behavior.  Like many things, they simply take their feelings on the issue as fact, and the limited knowledge they have as truth.

How about a thought experiment? A crazy guy in California decides to use his car as a weapon and drives into a crowd, killing several people.  Would Clinton and her ilk suggest that survivors should be able to sue the car manufacturer for having sold a product that could be misused by someone to cause death?  Suppose a group of men from middle-eastern countries use some American-made airliners to fly them into tall buildings, a short five-sided building, and a field in Pennsylvania, kills thousands.  Would Clinton and her ilk suggest that the makers of the airliners should be sued because their product was used to kill? And let's not forget that cars have been used in terror attacks, too - form VBIEDs to ramming crowds of civilians.

All of the above are clearly real world examples:  In 2001 a mass killing was committed via vehicular homicide near Santa Barbara CA.  In 2014, another mass killer used his vehicle as a weapon along with a knife (killing 3) a gun (killing 3) in this same area.  MADD asserts that "Every day in America, another 27 people die as a result of drunk driving crashes".  IIHS notes that "There were 29,989 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2014 in which 32,675 deaths occurred." Obviously, on 9/11/2001 aircraft were misused in order to kill ~ 3000 people.

Given this, I assume that liability suits have put the US auto and aircraft industries of business or at least added hundreds of thousands of dollars to the price of cars, planes, tickets, insurance, fuel and other accessories for those who are accident and violence free.

Of course not - it is even absurd to ask the question. But, when ti comes to firearms, liberals have no second thoughts about suspending reality and seeing it as a perfectly logical approach.

Clinton has said this is how it should go with the firearm industry because they sell a product that can be misused to cause death.  She and others have attacked Bernie Sanders (Bernie - hate the idea of giving my tax money away to others - my education was not free - but at least you got this one right) because he said he does not agree that the parents of Sandy Hook children should be able to sue the maker of the weapon used by a deranged killer.  Let's be clear:  the AR 15 did not go off by itself, did not walk into the school by itself.

From Huffington Post:

"The plaintiffs claim they can sue the companies because manufacturers knew the AR-15 rifle used in the Sandy Hook shooting wasn’t suitable for civilian use when it was introduced in the market."

Of course, they try to add this wrinkle - that the AR is inherently dangerous and was "unsuitable" for the public.  Of course, the AR platform is the among the most commonly owned rifles in the US, yet it is used in an infinitesimal number of crimes.  As with all other firearms, the vast, vast, vast majority of owners are law-abiding, safe users.  That hardly speaks to the notion that it is or was unsuitable for civilian use.  Most people are safe drivers, don't DUI, don't use their car as a weapon.  Same with firearms.  The position that the AR is somehow uniquely dangerous is simply an indicator of ignorance and mysticism - making it into the little black boogey-man.

The manufacturer and seller complied with all applicable laws. The killer's mother bought the weapon legally.  The killer (true to his act) killed her, stole the weapon and then went on his killing spree.  A criminal, a crime, yet the manufacturer and seller are liable?

No more than is the auto or airplane manufacturer.

More:

"Freedom Group, the North Carolina-based parent company of AR-15 maker Bushmaster Firearms, argues that it is protected by a 2005 federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms law that shields gun manufacturers from most lawsuits over criminal use of their products."

This law exists to prevent people from being sued for making products that function as intended but are then misused by others for evil purposes.  Of course, no one has had to pass such a law protecting auto or airplane manufacturers because no liberal seems motivated to hold them responsible.  History has shown that, if their product is defective and causes harm, they can be sued - and so can firearm manufacturers.   But this law had to be passed specifically to protect firearms manufacturers from the use of lawsuits aimed not at their production of faulty products but of perfectly functioning products that others misused.  Why - because such suits are a strategy used as a way of pursuing a backdoor restriction of gun ownership through either the bankruptcy of an industry or pricing their product out of most hands.

But, as I said - most liberals are not rational.