I am sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything on here, if any one still checks this blog at all. I am also sorry that this post has almost nothing to do with beer. However with all the debate over gun control in the United States there is something I need to talk about, and specifically about the Piers Morgan interview of Alex Jones.
First of all if you didn't see the Alex Jones interview it is on youtube. 
A lot of people have had a lot to say about this interview on facebook and twitter since it happened. The jist of it being "Alex Jones proves in 7 minutes why gun control is needed." I agree, he loses it pretty quickly during this interview, but I have some incite in to Alex Jones. (Did you know he has made quite a few movies. I have seen some of them.)
So back in 2006 and 2007 I was heavily involved with a few of the anti war, anti Bush organizations that existed. One of them, The World Can't Wait, I held office positions which included President of our local chapter. (Latter I learned that organization was deeply entwined with The Revolutionary Communist Party.) There was another member of our group that was always spreading the latest news to come from a website infowars.com . This is Alex Jones' website.
This fellow protester I once stood with was always burning dvd copies of movies, "Lose Change", "Terror Storm", and "Freedom to Facisim". The first two are both conspiriacy theroy movies made in a documentary style, suggesting that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were organized by the government. "Freedom to FacisIm" is a movie claiming that income taxes are unconsitutional, the IRS, Federal Reserve, and the Treasury take our income taxes and pocket them, and that there is a huge banking conspiracy to rob us and our country of all our valuables.
Alex Jones made both "Terror Storm" and "Freedom to Facisim". I do not recall who made Loose Change. So that is who Alex Jones is, a conspiracy theorist who believes the government and banks are trying to enslave us with phony money that has no real value.
I was cleaning out my apartment this past weekend, to get ready to brew beer later this winter, and happened to come across a copy of Terror Storm by Alex Jones while I was cleaning, and that is when all this suddenly hit me.
I was drinking his Kool-Aid without question when it suited the emotions I had about George W. Bush and the Iraq war. But now that I am not in that scene anymore and my emotions have calmmed and I can see him for the unstable scared white man he is. This is what has gotten me to thinking about what else my emotions may have clouded my judgement on and what everyone else's emotions have done to their judgement concerning the recent debates on gun control.
Emotions are running high on the gun control debate for sure, there have been a lot of horrible shooting tragedies in the news the past year and a lot of other news stories that scare us all in to feeling the need for increased self protection. But if we could set the emotions aside and just look at the facts we would see what real problems and solutions are.
I just had a conversation with a coworker, an avid hunter and sportsman who grew up in the inner city of Detroit in the 60's. I learned a lot from him just now about the gun control debate that makes me rethink things and some of it that I would need to look in to. What strikes me the most is that the majority of the gun control laws we need are already on the books but law enforcemnt is so under funded in these areas that these laws are uneffective. In many other instances common sense is simply lacking on the part of gun owners. As my coworker and I discussed if everyone that owned guns was required to safely store them in a un safe or other lockable area to prevent theft and child endangerment a lot of te recent gun violence would prevented. We also discussed how there really isn't an effective way to track second hand gun sales, which is the way most criminals aquire guns.
So in conclusion it sounds to me like the logical solution is beef law enforcement so they can enforce the laws already on the books as well as re-educating the gun owning public on the responsibilities of gun ownership and how to safely store guns and prevent gun violence in their community.
I would like to thank Alex Jones for unintentionally awakening me to how my own emotions can cloud my better judgement and my logical thought processes.
First of all if you didn't see the Alex Jones interview it is on youtube. 
A lot of people have had a lot to say about this interview on facebook and twitter since it happened. The jist of it being "Alex Jones proves in 7 minutes why gun control is needed." I agree, he loses it pretty quickly during this interview, but I have some incite in to Alex Jones. (Did you know he has made quite a few movies. I have seen some of them.)
So back in 2006 and 2007 I was heavily involved with a few of the anti war, anti Bush organizations that existed. One of them, The World Can't Wait, I held office positions which included President of our local chapter. (Latter I learned that organization was deeply entwined with The Revolutionary Communist Party.) There was another member of our group that was always spreading the latest news to come from a website infowars.com . This is Alex Jones' website.
This fellow protester I once stood with was always burning dvd copies of movies, "Lose Change", "Terror Storm", and "Freedom to Facisim". The first two are both conspiriacy theroy movies made in a documentary style, suggesting that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were organized by the government. "Freedom to FacisIm" is a movie claiming that income taxes are unconsitutional, the IRS, Federal Reserve, and the Treasury take our income taxes and pocket them, and that there is a huge banking conspiracy to rob us and our country of all our valuables.
Alex Jones made both "Terror Storm" and "Freedom to Facisim". I do not recall who made Loose Change. So that is who Alex Jones is, a conspiracy theorist who believes the government and banks are trying to enslave us with phony money that has no real value.
I was cleaning out my apartment this past weekend, to get ready to brew beer later this winter, and happened to come across a copy of Terror Storm by Alex Jones while I was cleaning, and that is when all this suddenly hit me.
I was drinking his Kool-Aid without question when it suited the emotions I had about George W. Bush and the Iraq war. But now that I am not in that scene anymore and my emotions have calmmed and I can see him for the unstable scared white man he is. This is what has gotten me to thinking about what else my emotions may have clouded my judgement on and what everyone else's emotions have done to their judgement concerning the recent debates on gun control.
Emotions are running high on the gun control debate for sure, there have been a lot of horrible shooting tragedies in the news the past year and a lot of other news stories that scare us all in to feeling the need for increased self protection. But if we could set the emotions aside and just look at the facts we would see what real problems and solutions are.
I just had a conversation with a coworker, an avid hunter and sportsman who grew up in the inner city of Detroit in the 60's. I learned a lot from him just now about the gun control debate that makes me rethink things and some of it that I would need to look in to. What strikes me the most is that the majority of the gun control laws we need are already on the books but law enforcemnt is so under funded in these areas that these laws are uneffective. In many other instances common sense is simply lacking on the part of gun owners. As my coworker and I discussed if everyone that owned guns was required to safely store them in a un safe or other lockable area to prevent theft and child endangerment a lot of te recent gun violence would prevented. We also discussed how there really isn't an effective way to track second hand gun sales, which is the way most criminals aquire guns.
So in conclusion it sounds to me like the logical solution is beef law enforcement so they can enforce the laws already on the books as well as re-educating the gun owning public on the responsibilities of gun ownership and how to safely store guns and prevent gun violence in their community.
I would like to thank Alex Jones for unintentionally awakening me to how my own emotions can cloud my better judgement and my logical thought processes.
