Firearms Friday: From Tel Aviv To California

The news on Wednesday night was maddening and sad but, honestly, I can’t say that I was surprised. The reality of this world, especially in Israel, is that terrorist attacks are going to happen. I didn’t quite expect it to happen at this time, during Ramadan, but the fact remains that three shooters opened fire in a Tel Aviv market killing four people. Afterward there where a few reactions that also didn’t surprise me…

There was no widespread social media outpouring like that which we witnessed following other terrorist attacks in Europe or high profile shootings in the United States for that matter. Actually, there were a number of people and organizations beyond with the clear majority being those affiliated with Judaism or Israel in some way and the next closest, in the United States, being those of a more conservative nature.

Sadly, but again not surprisingly, the liberal media and various groups on the left either saw this as an opportunity to shame and blame Israel into conceding peace or, given the news coming out of California this week, use this as an opportunity to preach gun control through some delusional view of the situation and the world as a whole. And that this the real point that I am going to dwell on for a bit. Give me a minute while I collect myself….

The unfortunate state that this country finds itself in at the moment is that when there is a shooting somewhere in the United States or a well reported incident from around the world, the gun control storm troopers take to the internet, the television, the radio, and/or the podium and preach the flawed and unconstitutional “virtues” of gun control. It has gotten to the point that regardless of the facts of the incident, they celebrate the moment and seize the opportunity to politicize tragedy. They are perfectly happy to strip people of their rights and place the blame on an inanimate object while completely ignoring or dismissing the fact that the individual is responsible for what happened.

By and large, those same people react in the same manner when there is a terrorist attack in Israel as they, once again, seize the opportunity to berate Israel and use the recent incident as a “clear example” of why Israel must make peace. They are perfectly content in stripping Israelis of their security and blaming Israel for “creating this situation” while completely ignoring or dismissing the fact that the individual is responsible for what happened. Further they refuse to accept the reality that the Palestinian people take to the streets in celebration every single time this happens.

For the most part, we are now in a situation where Israel must defend herself and those of us here in the United States must defend ourselves. We both need to defend our right to live and our right to self-defense (despite the ruling in California). We must accept the guiding principle of personal responsibility and focus on the facts rather than accept the propaganda smeared across the headlines. We are Tel Aviv.

Time To Play The Ebola Blame Game!

It might be more than just a cough!

Whenever a national, or international as is the case now, disaster/epidemic/conflict occurs there is a certain segment of the population that can’t help but find a completely unrelated scapegoat. These people, for the most part, are bat crap crazy. As for the rest of them, I don’t want to insult bats by comparing them to guano. So, on a scale of 1 to 7, how responsible are you for this Ebola epidemic according to the various whackadoos out there who have committed their kookiness to print?

1. The United States Government is to blame and by extension, all Americans: “The outbreak began in September, when The Daily Observer, a Liberian newspaper, published an article alleging that the virus was not what it seemed — a medical disaster — but rather a bioweapon designed by the United States military to depopulate the planet. Not long after, accusations appeared online contending that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had patented the virus and was poised to make a fortune from a new vaccine it had created with the pharmaceutical industry… [humanitarian champion and women’s rights activist] Chris Brown took to Twitter, announcing to his 13 million followers: “I don’t know ... but I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control.” 1 point if you work for the government and 1 point if you are a citizen of the United States.
2. Like everything else that goes wrong in this world, some people are always going to blame the Jews: There are countless examples of this phenomenon that can be found on various social media sites. One of the philosophical gems from these people stated the following: “Zionists keep inventing moral, elitist & racist viruses such as Ebola or AIDS whose main target are poor people, Africans, promiscuous &gays”. I know, MENSA must be knocking on their door right now. Note that many who claim not to be anti-Semitic, and actually get quite agitated of calling them out on it, simply swap out the word “Jew” with the word “Zionist”. 1 point if you are Jewish and a bonus point if you consider yourself a Zionist.
3. Conservatives and the NRA are the ones that have slowed our response and are therefore the ones to blame for Ebola becoming a worldwide epidemic/threat: “If only there was someone around who could educate the American public about the actual level of risk. Someone who was trusted as a public health expert and whose job it was to help us understand what we really need to worry about and what precautions we should take. / Actually, that is one of the primary responsibilities of the United States surgeon general. There’s just one problem: Thanks to Senate dysfunction and NRA opposition, we don’t have a surgeon general right now. In fact, we haven’t had a surgeon general for more than a year now — even though the president nominated the eminently qualified Dr. Vivek Murthy back in November 2013. / The lack of a surgeon general is now becoming more than just one more abstract example of government gridlock.” 1 point if you are a conservative and/or 1 point if you are an NRA member (2 points if you are a life member).

So, how did you score? As a pro-Israel conservative Jewish American who is a life member of the NRA there is a good chance, according to the aforementioned experts, that I am one of the causes for the Ebola crisis. Actually, according to their reasoning and the fact that I scored 6 out of 7, this whole thing might be completely my fault.

However, when you take a look through sane eyes at the criteria above, it is all BS. We know that this is simply one of those nasty viruses that has evolved over time… man didn’t engineer this one so don’t blame the United States or Jews in general for something that is naturally occurring. But you could already see that. After all those are extreme examples and no one with a fully functional brain would blame such a tragic situation on an unrelated group of people.

Oh wait, there is the media and the lefties out there so the last sentence no longer applies (although I did specific “fully functional brain” so the argument still holds water). They like to ignore the fact that we have both an Acting Surgeon General, Rear Admiral Boris D. Lushniak, and an Ebola czar, Ron Klain, working on this matter so there is not a void in Washington as MSNBC would have you believe. But, what else can you expect when “the broadcast news networks entirely“forgot” to mention that there was already a highly qualified acting surgeon general. Not once did ABC, CBS or NBC news mention… that anyone was currently doing the work of the surgeon general.” So don’t blame conservatives or the NRA for the situation that we find ourselves in today. We have two qualified individuals taking on this issue. They just aren’t the appointee that this administration wanted; a Surgeon General in place to further the liberal agenda from Washington not someone to simply focus on the health of the nation.

In the end, why don’t we simply focus on the issue at hand and take the measures necessary to ensure the safety of the people? This is not a time to go around assigning blame for the reemergence of Ebola and the transcontinental spread of the virus. Now is the time to take action and prevent this situation from getting out of hand. Once all of the facts are in, after this mess has subsided, then we can take a look at what exactly happened, what could have been done better, and laugh in disbelief as parents start naming their kids Ebola (you know it is going to happen).