Friday, December 12, 2008

Joan Armatrading

I got turned onto Joan Armatrading in 1984 while living in Santa Monica. I've never been the same since.

6 comments:

  1. No fair, Tom. My song was just for the listening pleasure; yours was a political statement.

    But, since you brought it up, don't you think you're overreacting? Do you really believe the government is going to try to take folks' guns away? And if they did, that would lead to taking their children away? Come on?

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  2. Mike,

    You need to spend more time in the United States.

    Washington D.C. fought for decades to keep people from having firearms. Cities confiscate thousand of firearms each year, from law abiding and criminals alike. Research the Great New Orleans Gun grab. The government is trying to take away ALL of our rights, from warrantless search and seizure, property confiscation for drug use/possession.
    Do you have any privacy when flying into the US? Luggage not searched?

    How about on the 2nd Amendment, for exercising my right to bear arms, I'm treated as a criminal. Texas requires a background check, fingerprints, photographs...isn't that what they do when booking criminals?

    Have you not read of any of the many abusing by the various Child Protective Services? These people can and have pulled children out of homes for "reported" or "suspected" abuse. How about the FLDS compound in Texas, hundreds of children removed from their parents because one--ONE- suspicious report. There are indications the CPS knew it was a prank call and went on the raid anyways. How many prosecutions have there been ?

    Mike, you really need to educate yourself. America is fast becoming an tyrannical state. Freedoms are disappearing.

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  3. Mike,

    I think the song has validity as a musical work.

    Nobody ever thinks it's going to happen until it does but the few people paying attention.

    If you told people in the UK 20 years ago that their entire lives, from emails to phone conversations would be monitored, down to having the highest number of CCTV cameras per capita of any place on earth after having been forcibly disarmed by their government for "their own good" they would have laughed at you. Where are they now?

    Ask a Brazilian electrician on his way to work on the wrong day how well that worked out for him. OH! Wait! You can't ask him because he was pinned to the floor of a tube train by a police officer and repeatedly shot in the head "on accident" and the Courts have ruled that the policemen and the police forces can not be held criminally liable in his death. You're anti-death penalty, I don't recall you posting about that last week when a UK judge made that ruling. Why not?

    Murder somebody and the death penalty is unfair. Get a government death penalty for trying to take a train to work...not a blip on Mikeb's blog.

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  4. You may be right Bob when you say.

    "Mike, you really need to educate yourself. America is fast becoming an tyrannical state. Freedoms are disappearing."

    I've written myself about the freedoms disappearing, about the Patriot Act and the other nonsense that happened during Bush, but I still find your concerns alarmist. And I find the claim that arming yourselves is what's preventing out and out tyranny, nothing short of grandiose. Now, before you get all huffy and insulted, please just don't. We're only talking here and everybody's entitled to their opinion.

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  5. Mike,

    I never claimed that arming MYSELF is what is preventing out and out tyranny. What is claimed is that an ARMED CITIZENRY can and has and will prevent an out and out tyranny.

    Please show me an example of a tyranny that lasted more then 5 years in recent history (say 150 years) that the people weren't disarmed.

    As far as my being concerns being alarmist, quite contrary, I'm probably understating them. No offense taken and hopefully none given when I say Mike you simply aren't here to see the freedoms disappearing.

    You know how to cook a live frog don't you? That is America at this point. To put it in 2nd amendment terms, decades ago people could and did buy guns at hundreds of places simply by paying cash. Now we in some states, a person has to get permission to BUY a firearm from the government. Remember the story of the 81 year old woman who wanted to buy a gun in Delaware? She was denied, why? Was she a convicted felon, no. Was she adjudicated as mentally incompetent, no. She was denied because some petty bureaucrat decided that HE DIDN"T THINK it was a legitimate purchase because she was 81 and female. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED, unless you run into a bureaucrat that doesn't want you to buy a firearm.....but our freedoms aren't disappearing, right?

    How about property rights? I lived in apartments from 18 to 39. When I moved in, smoking wasn't an issue, now LAWS say in many areas if your home connects with another person's home (apartments, condos, townhomes) it is illegal to smoke on your own property. Not just in the common areas, not just in the hallways is it illegal, but in some areas in your backyard, in your own home....but our freedoms aren't disappearing, right?

    I could go on all day, it is sickening what we've done to ourselves. And this is where I throw many liberals under the bus (some but not all). They are doing it for OUR OWN GOOD. Passing laws restricting our rights because they know better then us what we need....to heck with our rights. It is also where I throw many conservatives under the bus because they are doing the same thing. Invasion of Privacy, illegal wiretaps, the list goes on.

    Going back to the point of arming myself....King George thought that a bunch of rag tag farmers and townsfolks couldn't do much to resist his edicts....until he tried to disarm them. That was the last straw.

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