Replies

There is only one recourse - fire your sister and hire a new one.

Try this and then search on FR under MOORE. There have been many stories posted. SHAME ON YOU, MR. MOORE

Oops.. try this...SHAME ON YOU, MR. MOORE

Your family needs to do an intervention with your sister...she is a kool-aid drinker.

One cannot "distort facts" and arrive at an "overall correct theme". The thought is contradictory and is intellectually dishonest.

sadly, as in "invasion of the body snatchers," the condition is irreversible. just try to think of your sister in happier times.

dep

here are some links that may help you..

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html

http://www.theovangogh.nl/Bowling.html

Go to the last entry here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/833678/posts
DUBOB 11- more tales from the Dark UnderBelly Of the Beast...
various links and websites | 01-31-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

...and scroll backwards- you'll find links to posts & info about the subjects you mentioned. Good luck!

40 Reasons To Implement Gun Control:

1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, and Chicago cops need guns.
2. Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.
3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics".
4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into effect in 1994, are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates, which have been declining since 1991.
5. We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.
6. The more helpless you are the safer you are from criminals.
7. An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.
8. A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
9. When confronted by violent criminals, you should "put up no defense-give them what they want, or run" (Handgun Control Inc. Chairman Pete Shields, Guns Don't Die - People Do, 1981, p. 125).
10. The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns; just like Guns and Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
11. One should consult an automotive engineer for safer seatbelts, a civil engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for internal medicine, a computer programmer for hard drive problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.
12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which was created 130 years later, in 1917.
13. The National Guard, federally funded, with bases on federal land, using federally-owned weapons vehicles buildings and uniforms, punishing trespassers under federal law, is a "state" militia.
14. These phrases; "right of the people peaceably to assemble ", "right of the people to be secure in their homes", "enumerations herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people", and "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people."all refer to individuals, but "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." refers to the state.
15. "The Constitution is strong and will never change." But we should ban and seize all guns thereby violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to that Constitution.
16. Rifles and handguns aren't necessary to national defense! Of course, the army has hundreds of thousands of them.
17. Private citizens shouldn't have handguns, because they aren't "military weapons", but private citizens shouldn't have "assault rifles", because they are military weapons.
18. In spite of waiting periods, background checks, fingerprinting, government forms, etc., guns today are too readily available, which is responsible for recent school shootings. In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's, anyone could buy guns at hardware stores, army surplus stores, gas stations, variety stores, Sears mail order, no waiting, no background check, no fingerprints, no government forms and there were no school shootings.
19. The NRA's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling guns is propaganda, but the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign is responsible social activity.
20. Guns are so complex that special training is necessary to use them properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.
21. A handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.
22. Women are just as intelligent and capable as men, but a woman with gun is "an accident waiting to happen" and gun makers' advertisements aimed at women are "preying on their fears."
23. Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
24. Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun shows.
25. A majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority of the population supported owning slaves.
26. Any self-loading small arm can legitimately be considered to be a "weapon of mass destruction" or an "assault weapon."
27. Most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by because they can be trusted.
28. The right of Internet pornographers to exist cannot be questioned because it is constitutionally protected by the Bill of Rights, but the use of handguns for self defense is not really protected by the Bill of Rights.
29. Free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and typewriters, but self-defense only justifies bare hands.
30. The ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the Constitution.
31. Charlton Heston, a movie actor as president of the NRA is a cheap lunatic who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas, a movie actor as a representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.
32. Police operate with backup within groups, which is why they need larger capacity pistol magazines than "civilians" who must face criminals alone and therefore need less ammunition.
33. We should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
34. Police officers have some special Jedi-like mastery over handguns that private citizens can never hope to obtain.
35. Private citizens don't need a gun for self-protection because the police are there to protect them even though the Supreme Court says the police are not responsible for their protection.
36. Citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but police chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators who work in a building filled with cops, need a gun.
37. "Assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people. The police need assault weapons. You do not.
38. When Microsoft pressures its distributors to give Microsoft preferential promotion, that's bad; but when the Federal government pressures cities to buy guns only from Smith & Wesson, that's good.
39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their duty weapon.
40. Handgun Control, Inc., says they want to "keep guns out of the wrong hands." Guess what? You have the wrong hands.

Good luck. Hope you have success with your sister. Is she pretty young? There is more hope for her if so.

Here's another.. from The Australian..

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,5763232,00.html

How old is your sister? If she's between the ages of 16 and 25 there's hope that a well-reasoned argument will bring her back from the brink. Beyond that, only a heavy dose of reality will cure this sad sack.

I especially need rebuttal stuff on Iraq and Rumsfeld.

The reason we invaded Iraq was to prevent nuclear war in the Middle East.

Saddam Hussein was paying the "suicide bomber" families $25,000 per "Martyr". This is a lot of money to a poor Arab. If you recall, the suicide bombings in Israel were bringing that country to its knees, both psychologically and economically. Israel's army is not large enough to cross Jordan and invade Iraq. Israel's only chance to stop the suicide bombers was to nuke Baghdad. That might have meant strikes on Damascus, Syria and Cairo, Egypt. More nuclear strikes would, by necessity have to follow on Saudi Arabia.

Instead, GWB and the US stepped up to the plate and knocked Hussein out of the park. Bush made the decision to wage a US conventional war, rather than for the Israeli's to wage a nuclear war. Saved a lot of lives. Millions.

So which would your sister have preferred?

bump.

She admitted that Moore "did distort the sequence of events a bit"

You did better than me, I got a "he still said those things."

I especially need rebutall stuff on Iraq and Rumsfeld.

I have a couple of angles to try. First let me identify that intellectual problems with Moore's perspectives. Our war against Saddam in Iraq relates to that.

On the pacifist, internationalist left there is no acceptance of the use of force and killing. A corollary is an unwillingness to sacrifice one's own life for patriotic causes. Some pacifists can give their lives for humanity, so the lines remain unclear.

More toward the center of the internationalist left and at the center of the American Democratic party, there is less of a refusal to use force but a continued sense that it should be avoided even when to do so could lead to loss of innocent life, reduced geopolitical stature for America (or substitute Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, etc...).

On a personal level, the second amendment doesn't make sense to these people because force isn't in their vocabulary.

Now it's time to identify some of the most important reasons why so many people have fallen into the trap of believing America (and capitalist democracies world wide) are both wrong in aggressively expanding their influence and in allowing citizens to be armed. Moore argues against both.

Despite the terrible historic facts that formed the American nation, the revolutions, the civil war, the wars in Europe and the Pacific, the Korean war, and the Viet Nam war, our citizens are so well protected that many of them have come to believe that peace is a permanent fixture in their lives.

The nuclear umbrella has given us peace at home. Our fighting forces have kept communism at bay. This has gone on for generations, not counting WWII, the gravity of which was not lost on any American after Pearl Harbor. (But it's interesting to note that many Americans didn't think we should fight in WWII until then!)

Despite our frontier tradition, despite our battles here and overseas in which we've lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, contemporary Americans have bought into the idea that a new era is upon us, one in which all countries and all peoples should join hands in peace.

This is a beautiful idea, but it isn't borne out in historic fact. On the other hand, history shows that American might has brought freedom to numerous lands. And our might has nothing to do with colonialism. Japan and Germany are our strongest economic competitors now. We have independent governments in South America, and even tolerate Cuba, Venezuela, for example. Eastern Europe is now free. Israel is free. Taiwan is free. The list goes on and on.

So what should she understand about anti-Americanism abroad? I don't claim to fully understand this. But I would say that intellectuals have been questioning American government for more than a century. Marxism on college campuses is rampant. Revisionist history is rampant. The printing pressess, radio, TV, and film media have had non-stop messages of mistrust and envy toward American government. But she should ask herself what would the world be like if we had not fought in WW1. How would it be if we hadn't fought in WW2, for example, if we had just left the Pacific to Japan. How would it be if we hadn't defended South Korea? And she should even try to imagine how much more powerful the Soviet Union would be if we hadn't fought against its influences in Viet Nam. Morever, we defended Afghanistan by sending the Mujahadeen weapons and training, further sapping the Soviet Union of its strength. And finally, we've supported a free Israel, after the suffering of the Jews during WW2. It's the least we could do, and every American should know that many of our soldiers who fought in WW2 knew about Germany's Final SOlution, and when they matured, wanted to help the Israelis find a place in the sun and influenced our government after coming home from the war to do just that.

Despite the propaganda, the wide-spread belief in Europe and even in America that mild communism and heavy socialism are beneficial to human beings, can your sister truly imagine a world in which America hadn't resisted stalinist and maoist communism? She should read at least one Solzhenitzyn book before she holds forth against America's stalwart fight against communism in the cold war. I highly recommend his First Circle. In this book, a Russian scientist is cast into the Gulag. But he is recruited to work on spying devices for the Russian Secret Police. Solzhenitzyn's books are a gruesome catalog of injustice, but besides that, First Circle touches on the very center of oppression and oppressive regimes: they need technology.

I won't take much time to address second amendment issues for your sister, but she should be given the chance to ask herself why America is the oldest surviving democratic government on the earth. She should ask herself how we pushed across the plains and secured a land for ourselves, and why we can't accept that urbanization translates into disarming of civilians. I know others have done this much more justice than I have, but self defense is a basic human right. Moreover, a well-armed public is a good deterrent against external attack. And many of our founding fathers insisted that knowledge of a well-armed public helps to keep its politicians honest. Moore may not even care about the second amendment. He may not even be afraid of accidental or crime-related gun death for himself. But he is making a mint on America's fears. Patriots find his "deep" searches for the origins of Columbine's tragedy to be both undisciplined and exploitative. It is politically incorrect to look toward loss of morals and weakened social responsibility in this tragedy. But if one would dare to look there, we might find things Moore wouldn't want to admit as root causes.

The question of Iraq is more difficult for your sister if she holds the above viewpoints. There are three important issues she should at least consider, however.

Saddam's atrocities are well-documented and most, even among Arabic-speaking nations, agree that he went too far in enforcing his rule. It's humanitarian to consider removing him on that basis alone.
Saddam had been threatening our allies in the area, including Israel, for years. His WMD ambitions made this threat a serious one which we had to address.
Saddam had begun to threated America. The debate rages on about his involvement in terrorism, but his words revealed his ambitions. After 9/11, Americans even more strongly believe it is their right to preempt threats. I hope your sister can accept that.

Your sister should ask herself whom she should believe: Saddam, France, Russia, or Germany? Her president, elected by the Electoral College, is telling her that removing Saddam is the right choice now. Most patriots agree. There are good reasons to take action against Iraq.

Finally, your sister herself enjoys the fruits of American military might. She's living abroad in western countries, speaking her mind at any moment she desires, and holding forth strongly anti-patriotic points of view. She should know that those rights were purchased with the blood of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who willingly gave their lives for a purpose they felt was higher than their own existence.

Your sister is alive, well, and can hold her own contrary opinions because of the force for liberty maintained by American patriots. Moreover, we all hope that someday she will change her mind and join us. We can wait. Young people who question America and its government are encouraged to do so. It is often those who question it the most who learn to love it best. I know from experience!

Send her a sympathy card on the loss of her mind.