Guns in Bars

Senate passes bill to allow guns in bars

By John Rodgers, jrodgers@nashvillecitypaper.com

The state Senate passed a bill today to allow gun carry permit holders to take their firearms into bars.


Don't Take your Guns to Town
By Johnny Cash

A young cowboy named Billy Joe grew restless on the farm
A boy filled with wonderlust who really meant no harm
He changed his clothes and shined his boots
He combed his dark hair down
And his mother cried as he walked out

[Chorus]
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town

He laughed and kissed his mom
And said your Billy Joe's a man
I can shoot as quick and straight as anybody can
But I wouldn't shoot without a cause
I'd gun nobody down
But she cried again as he rode away

[Chorus]
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town

He sang a song as on he rode
His guns hung at his hips
He rode into a cattle town
A smile upon his lips
He stopped and walked into a bar
And laid his money down
But his mother's words echoed again

[Chorus]
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town

He drank his first strong liquor then to calm his shaking hand
And tried to tell himself he had become a man
A dusty cowpoke at his side began to laugh him down
And he heard again his mothers words

[Chorus]
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town

Filled with rage then
Billy Joe reached for his gun to draw
But the stranger drew his gun and fired
Before he even saw
As Billy Joe fell to the floor
The crowd all gathered 'round
And wondered at his final words

[Chorus]
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town

Comment: Having been in a bar or two in my lifetime, I do not think firearms and alcohol are a good mix. This is a bad idea. I hope the House rejects it and if passed, the Governor should veto it.

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They are taking our American jobs!

The politics of envy and resentment is usually a left-wing populist position and is based on the premise that if someone else has more, you have less. Populist see the economic pie as fixed and think it is important that everyone have a more equal slice. Conservatives believe it is more important to bake a bigger pie than redistribute shares. They know that the size of the pie is not fixed.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the issue of immigration, right-wing populist adopt the same politics of envy and resentment as their left-wing brethren. They see the number of jobs as fixed and believe that if an immigrant has a job then someone else lost a job. They often rant against immigrants “taking American jobs”.

The truth is that there is not a job that has your name on it. The government does not issue jobs. There is not a job fairy that reserves a job just for you. It is estimated that there are somewhere between 12 and twenty million illegal immigrants in America. If we assume the number is 16 million and most of them are working, we cannot assume that they displaced 16 million American workers.

While there has recently been a slight increase in unemployment, still the number of unemployed persons in America is only about 5 percent of the workforce which comes to about 7 and half million people. When you consider that at anyone time some people are always in the process of switching jobs, this is a relatively small number. If we were to erroneously assume that all 7 and half million would be working if the 16 million immigrants where not here, then that would still leave over 8 million jobs unfilled.

If we did not have the immigrant workforce however, would those who are now unemployed have jobs? No. A lot of the jobs are the jobs Americans do not want to do. An unemployed musician in Nashville, an unemployed construction worker in Chicago, or an unemployed office worker in Atlanta are not likely to move to Arkansas to pluck chickens. Most of them would not even except working for a lawn service company in their own city.

The immigrant population is not costing us “American” jobs but instead they are growing the economy. If we were to take 16 million workers out of the workforce, we would lose many more than 16 million jobs. By starting businesses, by supplying the labor needed for growing existing businesses, and by spending money in America, immigrants create more jobs than they fill. While immigrants increase the supply of labor they also increase the demand for labor. Many small companies would go out of business if they did not have their immigrant labor force.

If you talk to almost any employer who has employed immigrants he will tell you that they make good employees. They have a good work ethic and often work at jobs that employers would have a hard time filling. That they make good employees should not be surprising; after all, by self-selection these may be the best their native land has to offer. These are people who had the initiative to pull up stake, endure hardship and danger to come to a strange land where they did not know the language or the culture in order to have a better opportunity. They are obviously ambitious and adventurous. How many of us would do the same?

We live in a global economy where capital is flexible and can cross borders; we also need flexibility in the labor supply. Rather than shoot ourselves in the foot by removing 16 million hardworking people from the labor force, we need to recognize the value of that labor. It is time to establish a guest worker program.

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U.S. Given Poor Marks on the Environment

By FELICITY BARRINGER
The New York Times,January 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list.

European nations dominate the top places in the ranking, which evaluates sanitation, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural policies, air pollution and 20 other measures to formulate an overall score, with 100 the best possible.

The top 10 countries, with scores of 87 or better, were led by Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The others at the top were Austria, France, Latvia, Costa Rica, Colombia and New Zealand, the leader in the 2006 version of the analysis, which is conducted by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities.

“We are putting more weight on climate change,” said Daniel Esty, the report’s lead author, who is the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. “Switzerland is the most greenhouse gas efficient economy in the developed world,” he said, in part because of its use of hydroelectric power and its transportation system, which relies more on trains than individual cars or trucks.

The United States, with a score of 81.0, he noted, “is slipping down,” both because of low scores on three different analyses of greenhouse gas emissions and a pervasive problem with smog. The country’s performance on a new indicator that measures regional smog, he said, “is at the bottom of the world right now.”

Comment: This is embarrassing and appalling. The US has long been the leader of the Free World. This is the nation that liberating Europe from Hitler and defeated Japan. We defeating the Soviet Union and liberating half the world from Communist oppression. We have been the leader in providing aid to undeveloped countries, in conquering disease, in promoting democracy and stability in the world, and in promoting trade and economic growth and integration. We are the most powerful and influential country on the planet. Global warming may be the biggest challenge facing the planet and yet the US is absent in seeking a solution and is in fact one of the worse offenders among industrialized nations. The US should be a leader in solving this problem, not ranking behind Albania.

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Charlie Wilson's War is a Great Movie!

I went to the movies yesterday and saw a great movie! I give it five stars, two thumbs up! It has it all: humor, intrigue, sexy women, and adventure. This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. It is a patriotic film which is a rarity from Hollywood which tends to focus on everything wrong with America.

Charlie Wilson’s War stars Tom Hanks as Congressman Charlie Wilson and Julia Roberts as Houston socialite Joanne Herring and is the true story of how a playboy Congressman, a renegade CIA agent, and a Houston socialite joined force to lead the largest and most successful covert operation in American history. Their efforts contribute to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

For those old commie-libs who think the world was better off before the Evil Empire was defeated, you will not like this movie; for those who celebrate America’s victory over the Soviet Union, you will love it! Watching Afghan Freedom fighters shoot down Soviet helicopters was exhilarating.

To see the promo, click here: Charlie Wilson’s War

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