Tuesday, May 26, 2015

The Peasant Has A Respite

Your busy but faithful Peasant is taking a little
time off to visit family and friends for a little
while. I shall be back, of course, before you
know it, my wonderful readers, with more
stories to pore over, people and events to study,
heroes to praise and villains to castigate.

Meanwhile, enjoy these wonderful conservative
online publications while I'm away.

National Review Online
www.nationalreview.com/

The American Conservative
www.theamericanconservative.com/

Newsmax
www.newsmax.com/


See you all soon!


MEM

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Memorial Day Gratitude

Memorial Day is near, and so is all that
accompanies it --parades, picnics, parties,
lots of fun things. But let us not forget the
brave folks who made the day, and the freedom
to enjoy it, possible.

God rest our fellow Americans who served in
our military and made the ultimate sacrifice
for us. Your thankful Peasant takes time to
contemplate on Memorial Day and its purpose,
to remember and honor our warriors who
gave literally all for us and our country.

See you, my grand readers, very soon.


MEM

Thursday, May 7, 2015

A Whip 'Round The News

Hello all! How 'bout we take a whip 'round the news
to see what there is to see? We might turn up some
fun things to discuss, some maddening things to
raise our blood pressure, some things to cheer and
be grateful for, and maybe something to laugh over!

Easter has come and gone, and your beloved Peasant
spent the day with friends after attending Mass.
I ate well, I enjoyed the most wonderful company,
and I got to hear a pianist friend perform in a
wonderful lounge in downtown Milwaukee.
Sadly, not everyone in Milwaukee had a wonderful
Easter; six fatal shootings occurred there in the
space of 1 1/2 hours on the eve of Easter. Tears on
Easter morning. The perpetrators will likely get
light sentences from the spare-the-criminal-the-hell-
with-the-victim judges at the Milwaukee County
Courthouse, and Mayor Tom Barrett will just as likely
mount his soapbox to decry the easy availability of guns
on the streets of Milwaukee. Never mind that he is
also a big proponent of gun control, which makes it harder
only for the law-abiding to obtain firearms to defend
themselves, their families, and their property, while
not doing squat in making it harder for criminals
to get same to commit their crimes. Would that the
Easter Bunny had given our mayor and judges some
sense and sensibility, and I don't mean the classic book
by Jane Austen!

The political alliance between American Jews and the
Democrat Party is, for all intents and purposes, over.
Gradually coming apart at the seams in recent years,
the last stitches came undone with the sour feelings
between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, made worse over the U.S.-
brokered nuclear deal with Iran which will only slightly
retard Iran's progress toward developing nuclear weaponry
that will be capable of destroying Israel. Of course
Obama thinks it's the deal of the century! He has no love
for Israel, her people, or Jews in general, and it shows in
his foreign policy regarding Israel. Netanyahu could never
get through to Obama on the dangers Israel faces from
a nuclear Iran, whose mullah rulers have long pledged to
wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Many American Jews
who have consistently supported the Democrats are now
rethinking their loyalty to a political party that seems
to not give a flying whatever about them. Republicans
believe that as a consequence, they could pick up still
more Senate seats in 2016, as well as the White House
itself. President Obama has sown some bitter seeds of
contempt for friends at home and abroad, and now
his party is likely to reap a bitter harvest of defeat and
despair.

And the slaughter of Christians in the Middle East continues
with barely any acknowledgement from the White House,
let alone condemnation, still less action to protect them.

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning
recently issued this statement in response to the dire economics
and jobs report: "This week's double whammy of bad economic
news with the Atlanta Fed's first quarter growth estimate down
to 0 percent and the abysmal jobs report showing only 34,000
more people are working while 277,000 left the labor force
effectively puts the breaks on recovery talk. The real question,
seven years after the financial crisis, is whether we have begun
to slide into a new recession." As far as your exasperated
Peasant is concerned, we have been and are still in the old
recession which was triggered by the bursting of the housing
bubble and exacerbated, on purpose, by President Obama.
He won't rest until he gets as many Americans dependent upon
government programs for as many of our needs as possible,
so as to create a command-and-control economy and society,
with the government installed as our master. Any talk that
comes from Obama and the Democrats about new numbers
showing that we are climbing out of the recession into a
recovery period is hogwash! We will at last have recovery
if we elect a truly conservative president in 2016, and give
him a veto-proof majority in the Senate while maintaining
the large conservative advantage in the House.

And why isn't Lois Lerner behind bars? Answer: U.S.
Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen told
House Speaker John Boehner that he won't be presenting
Lerner's contempt citation to a federal grand jury. The outgoing
DC Attorney is being a good little foot soldier in President
Obama's army of criminals, elitists, statists, and obstructionists,
spitting on the Constitution and We the People as a matter
of course. Your frustrated Peasant can't wait for next year's
elections, and for Inauguration Day in January 2017 (provided
we succeed in electing the aforementioned truly conservative
president to succeed Obama)!

At last, something of lighter(?) substance: rapper DMX recently
robbed one of his fans at gunpoint(!). Most fans of celebrities
get autographs of their idols or have their photos taken with
them. But rappers are a different breed: a fan can only say that
he has connected with his favorite rapper if that rapper sticks him
up. There's another reason to not be a fan of any rapper; in
addition to their songs being full of obscenities and violent
fantasies, it's dangerous to have close contact with a rapper.
It doesn't seem worth it to me, how about you, my grand
readers?

See you all soon with more news to share and to comment on!


MEM









On Excusing Criminal Behavior

As you, my fabulous readers know, your beloved
Peasant is a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
a city that I am proud to call home. The city has
many wonderful and exciting places to see and
things to do for everyone of all ages. Milwaukee
has a long, rich history of industry, art, finance,
entertainment, sports, education, and politics.
But, like too many major American cities these
days, Milwaukee has some terrible problems
centering on its inner city neighborhoods --- violent
crime in the forefront. And this aforementioned
problem is worsening as your faithful Peasant
writes this piece.

In recent months the following crimes took place
in Milwaukee's troubled neighborhoods: a pregnant
mother was shot dead in front of her son. A little girl
was shot while playing on a playground when rival
gang members swept in, exchanging gunfire, when
a stray bullet struck the child; she died a few days
later in a hospital. A man accidentally struck a small
boy when the child went into the street without paying
mind to traffic, stopped to help the child, and was shot
dead while he did so. Violent crimes, including gun-
related crimes, are up in number from this month last
year. Why are these atrocities happening, and in
greater frequency?

A Milwaukee County judge who hears homicide and
sexual assault cases, Judge David Borowski, shared
his insight into these dark matters in a guest editorial
piece which appeared a few days ago in the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel. He states that Milwaukee has to face
the fact that "there has been a major breakdown in the
family structure" accompanied by a major breakdown
in values. Poor or no parenting is a factor; so is a lack
of respect for life. So is a lack of self-control. Ditto
a lack of a proper education. I  have been well
aware for some years that many children who have
attended Milwaukee's public schools straight on from
kindergarten through high school graduate without
the reading schools enabling them to read what is
printed on their diplomas. What kind of jobs are they
going to get?

Judge Borowski points out that yes, guns are part of the
problem, as too many of them are obtained by felons
who have histories of dangerous behavior. But underneath
all that is what the judge calls "bad, thoughtless, violent
behavior." He went on to point out that the guns being
used in this manner are not purchased at sporting goods
stores or from legal, reputable gun dealers at their shops
or at weekend gun shows, but rather are bought off
"the street" or bought by straw purchasers, that is, those
pretending to buy them for someone, or are simply stolen.
These sales, therefore, are outside of firearm laws.
Criminals don't obey laws; that is why they are
criminals.

What can concerned city citizens do about this threat to
their safety, to the stability of the city and its neighborhoods,
to the the citizens' very lives? His Honor has these ideas:
Law abiding citizens in these crime-ridden neighborhoods
must stop tolerating crime, and to do so by cooperating
with the police when they investigate criminal activity
there. They must stop the "no snitch" culture that is
rooted in fear and distrust of the police, as well as fear
of reprisals from gangs and other hoodlums. Parents
must be parents to their children, and must support other
parents in doing the same. Support good schools, be they
public or private. Be watchful of each other's kids and
the other kids in their neighborhoods, and demand
personal responsibility all around. And elected officials
can and must have roles in combating crime, including
judges; the latter have to be held accountable for fair
sentences and also for protecting the public. The state
Department of Corrections can help as well by doing
a better job of monitoring former criminals who are
walking around free while on extended supervision.
And finally, Judge Borowski calls for (and your
beloved Peasant has been wanting this to be done
for the longest time!) an end to excuses for violent
behavior; no more excusing criminals for their crimes
due to joblessness, poverty, or whatever other social
ills. We must all be accountable, and held accountable,
for our actions, and Judge Borowski, unlike some of
his colleagues at the courthouse, realizes this.
And I say that if we keep excusing away violent behavior
and other criminal conduct, how will we excuse away
the resultant injuries and deaths of the victims to their
their families, their friends, and their neighbors?

The Peasant says to Judge Borowski, "Hear hear!"


MEM