The GOP Sleaze Factor

For the past couple of days there has been a lot of discussion crossing the airwaves about the Colorado Republican non-primary, and it is not complimentary. Both the state and the national GOP have infuriated millions of the people who make up their base. And many of those infuriated voters don't even live in the State of Colorado. I live in California and I am furious over this disgusting play.

As soon as the primary season is past, just as soon as I have the chance to vote Trump in the primary here in California, I will reject the GOP and re-register as an Independent. I suspect millions of other people will do the same, and it is all because of the GOP's own malfeasance and pure-d sliminess.

I'm sure this was not something the RNC / GOP Establishment wanted to happen but they have brought it on themselves by their own tone-deaf arrogance. They have insulted every single Republican voter this election season and I will not willingly affiliate myself with a political party so disconnected from its base.
 
Worse, instead of listening and trying to figure out that they're pissing me and others like me off, they keep shoving their collective head farther up their alimentary canal. All in an effort to not hear what the people of this country are screaming:

We do not want Paul Ryan.

We do not want some other party hack flown in at the last minute and shoved down our throats against our will.

The majority who have spoken so far in their state primaries do not want Ted Cruz. If they did, he would be ahead in the delegate count instead of trailing by more than 200 and a lot farther back if he wasn't such a wheeler-dealer. Which is fine to a point, but buying people who's own characters are highly questionable if a swag bag is all it takes, is disgusting.

What the GOP / RNC wanted was for things behind the scenes to hum along quietly, without anyone paying attention. Kind of like:

So what is all this excitement about Colorado? In case you haven't been listening to the bombast and whining, it's because about a million people in the state of Colorado were cut out of this election. They had their voices silenced by a decision made by their party "representatives".

According to the Colorado Secretary of State records available online, as of April 1st this year, there are more than 957,000 active registered Republicans and more than 1,016,000 Independent voters registered. These are the two voting blocs most likely to vote for Donald Trump. But Colorado canceled it's Republican primary election for this presidential cycle last August.

This isn't just any election cycle. This is the election cycle during which America is choosing its next president for the next four or eight years. And what does the Colorado GOP do? Why, it completely cut its electorate out of the process by not holding a primary.

Instead, the party apparatchiks held district conventions to select representatives to attend a state delegation selection party. In the end, just 6,000 Coloradans attended that. Of those, each who wants to go to the next level had just a matter of seconds to sell themselves to the other attendees for one of thirty-seven delegate slots.

So from a potential field of nearly two million voters, six thousand people got to pick thirty-seven to represent them at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this July. Now I'm sorry, but to me, a mere tenth of one percentile for whom I didn't even get to vote is not representational.

Worse still is that the Colorado GOP is clearly biased. They set this up specifically so a non-traditional candidate couldn't possibly win their delegates. Now Cruz, being the Washington insider that he is, and probably with a wink and a nod from Colorado party officials, learned of this set-up beforehand, and was able to make hay with it.

This is not America. This is not how our democratic republic is supposed to work. It is one person, one vote and when a political party cuts its base out of an election, that is wrong.

Last night I was watching a program on Fox Business Network and there was a segment in which someone said something profound:

'Take away my vote, the last thing that makes us equal.'

Think about that for a second. That says it all. The one place in life where Americans are perfectly equal is in the voting booth. In the voting booth there is no race, no color, no religion, no economics, no nothing. It is the most level of playing fields - and what the Colorado GOP did was to take that away.

When the dust settled, the Colorado GOP Tweeted:

This Tweet, "We did it. #NeverTrump" was quickly taken down - but they did Tweet it, and it is disgusting as a representation of democracy.

What about all of the people who didn't realize that the primary had been canceled?

Granted, this was decided last August and there were newspaper articles leading up to it, but what recourse did Joe or Josephine Sixpack-Republican voter have if they disagreed with this change?

It was a backroom deal done by the party officials and, from what I've been able to find, they didn't include the electorate in the decision. They just did it. Silencing Joe and Jo Sixpack, cutting them off and shutting them out in the cold.

What about all of the people in Colorado who wanted to speak for themselves, to choose and cast a vote for a particular candidate? Nope. Sorry - you're not allowed.

What about all of the people who wanted to participate in the process, but couldn't because of health or economic reasons? The party's party was held in Colorado Springs - what if you couldn't get from home to there because you didn't have a car, or couldn't afford the bus ticket? Sorry. Too bad, so sad.

What the Republican party did in Colorado was completely shut out the electorate. They decided who was not going to be their candidate long before their turn came up to vote. The people of Colorado who might support Donald Trump or John Kasich got royally screwed by their own political party.

Now isn't that nice?

And what's going to happen with me is I'll keep doing what I do now. When the Slime Master appears on my television screen, I change channels. #NeverCruz.

Come June 8th, I will change my party affiliation - for good.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

When is "More" Too Much?

Again we have a situation where the news is full of a shooting. Again it's in Colorado. The scene of the Columbine massacre, the Aurora theater shooting, and a number of other high-profile cases, including one in Colorado Springs on October 31, 2015 this year in which a shooter killed three people and was shot, himself.

What fascinates me is that a brief, cursory review of Colorado firearms law this morning shows a couple of gaping holes.

There is no waiting period, for instance. And the State of Colorado prohibits gun registration. Yes - the State of Colorado prohibits gun registration. You can find that for yourself, here: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/csp/colorado-gun-laws That is the Official Colorado State Patrol website.

A couple of years ago, when legislators tried to tighten up the regulations, after Columbine, after the Aurora theater shooting, before this, the citizens of Colorado held a recall election against four legislators who had proposed stricter gun laws. The ever popular Wikipedia has information on that - four legislators were named, two were recalled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_recall_election,_2013


So, before the cries of "more gun control!" become too loud, stop and ask yourself, or your roomie, why, if it's so horrible, did the citizens of Colorado themselves fight back against more restrictive laws?

It is an interesting question. Colorado is not precisely a bastion of conservative thoughts and values. Heck! It was among the first states to legalize marijuana. For Heaven's sake, marijuana retailers hold Black Friday sales to attract new customers and offer Christmas gift sets.

http://www.9news.com/story/life/holiday/black-friday/2015/11/27/black-friday-pot-sales/76463526/

I don't get it, I really don't but because the State of Colorado has the laws that it does and the citizens of Colorado seem satisfied with them as they are, okay. I'll shrug and go about my business.

Now, for the sake of intellectual exercise and exploration, let's play pretend. What if the receptionist at Planned Parenthood was a hunter, someone with experience with firearms, comfortable in their use. What if that person, or someone else there, with the same background and experience as my fictional receptionist, had a gun available. What if one of my fictional people, or someone outside, was carrying a concealed handgun, loaded with none in the chamber and the safety engaged but ready to rock and roll if needed. What do you suppose might have happened?

Yes, there might have been equal or greater carnage. Or, maybe, the shooter would have had second thoughts before pulling to a stop in front of the clinic. Maybe he would have had second thoughts even before putting the rifle into his vehicle and putting the key into the ignition. Maybe he would have thought about it and decided not to do that. Or, maybe, that receptionist, or the real-life guy who was outside, sitting in his car who looked square into the shooter's eyes and ended up with injuries resulting from glass from his windshield exploding into the car when the shooter fired at him, could have stepped up and shot the creep dead before he had the chance to terrorize everyone in that clinic, or kill three people.

The idiot's motive(s) still aren't known. The cops have had him in custody for nearly twenty-four hours as I write this, and they still don't know what the idiot wanted or was doing. Suicide by cop, maybe? Or maybe his daughter went to that clinic, had a procedure and suffered some sort of medical complication and he was out for revenge? Who knows. I don't. The cops don't. Only the shooter knows and, apparently, he's not talking.

I don't advocate going back to the Wild West of the 1800's where handgun laws were non-existent. However, I do wonder what it might be like if those of us who legally own weapons weren't surrounded by ignorant people who don't recognize firearms for what they are. They're a tool. These people aren't stupid, they're ignorant. They fear what they don't understand.

I honestly think that if firearms classes were required, if everyone had to go through firearms training, including the safe handling of them, the fear of them would evaporate. Once fear evaporated, the ignorant people who now fear them might come to realize that guns, in and of themselves, are not bad or evil.

I remember once reading that certain civilizations in the Caribbean and South America fear having their picture taken. They think the image is a form of soul stealing. They fear cameras because they don't understand how they work.

It's the same thing when it comes to firearms. People who fear them don't understand how they work.

Granted, unless you beat someone over the head with a camera, pointing it at them won't cause physical harm. It can be argued that pointing a gun at someone won't cause physical harm either, and it won't. It requires the flexion of a finger against the trigger to cause the harm, just as it requires the flexion of a finger to take a picture.

As a personal anecdote, my sister was a very vocal anti-gun advocate until she was in her forties. Then, her friends introduced her to the man she eventually married - a hunter. The last time I saw her, she took me trap shooting and let me use her custom-fitted Purdy shotgun. A year later she and her husband flew down to Arizona and went through a firearms camp. The same camp the FBI and law enforcement agencies use for their advanced training courses. Her then boyfriend taught her, educated her, that firearms in and of themselves are not the problem. They're now married and she still goes shooting.

So, before we talk about still more gun control laws, which have been proved again and again and again don't work, how about talking about instituting gun education laws?

Just a little food for thought.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories