North Carolina Shows Its Ass…. Again

Well, as a resident of the above mentioned tar heel state, I find myself this evening feeling a bit dirty, like someone spilled oil on me that I can’t get off. There have been times in my past that I wasn’t proud of “where I come from, ” and this is another. As some of you know, I grew up in a rather smallish mountain town (NOT South Park) in Pennsylvania. I wasn’t proud of it, but as I grew older, I became less embarrassed by it and now find that I am proud of where I grew up. Several years ago (11, in fact) I moved back to North Carolina. I had lived in NC for many years in the military and wasn’t thrilled about the idea of coming back here 11 years ago. But I have changed in that as well. I love living in North Carolina. It is a great state filled with good people.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for October 12, 2010

A hearty good evening (or morning as it may be in reality as I am writing this at almost 3:00 am). I will again be keeping it short this evening as I am still having a bit of trouble typing at my usual rate of speed. I have thus far determined that they wrist is not broken. Instead it must be something in the joint or tendons or something. It can hold weight just fine, I just cannot turn the wrist or move it quickly without pain. I also have the big event this week at work: The release of a new product that will revolutionize the industry yet again. Very exciting times, and very busy times as I have all the bigwigs at my location for launch on Thursday. So tonight I will be adding only two articles to start and hoping to add more as the day goes on tomorrow (although I cannot promise). As always, feel free to add any topics that you want to discuss. It’s all fair game….

Tuesday Night Open Mic for August 31, 2010

Tuesday night has again crept up on me. I offer some more good articles for discussion this week, including one sent to me by a friend. I included it because it really did kind of speak directly to how I was feeling about Beck’s rally this last weekend. It is the first article below, so thanks for sending that over. Elsewhere we have UCLA firing a scientist because his scientific results didn’t match their political opinions, the possibility that the Republican party could embrace gay rights, and absolute impotency of the federal regulatory agency that always lets us down, the SEC. I will be posting a guest commentary on Thursday night but will be largely unavailable this weekend, as my sister is getting married. JAC, if you could bring the topic forward that I mentioned would be good for open mic, I would appreciate it greatly. Still taking applications for regular contributors to the site as well! Enjoy your Tuesday everyone. I will be weighing in all day when possible.

Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell. Don’t Care?

I noticed that there were some discussions beginning on this subject in the threads today so I figured I would take the night to quickly open the subject for discussion. It is an area we have not tackled previously, and to be honest it is a subject that I have not had the time to research in depth. I had figured to cover it in the next couple of weeks since the President mentioned it in the State of the Union. But since I had no guest commentary submitted for this week, I figured I would throw it out there rather than simply going without another article until the beginning of next week. I am, as you can probably guess from the title, talking about the President’s promise to eliminate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on homosexuals in the military. I know it can be a sensitive subject, and one that is often fought on lines of very different perspectives (veterans have a far different perspective on this than those who haven’t served). But perhaps we can discuss this without allowing the religious aspect of things to cloud the discussion?

Tuesday Night Open Mic for November 3, 2009

Good Morning fine readers of Stand Up For America. As I begin writing this evening I am in a fairly good mood. Tuesday night open mic is upon us again and it seems that the very elections we discussed yesterday are dominating the news cycles tonight. I am going to avoid open mic’ing the big governor’s races and the “message sent to Democrats” nonsense that seems to be dominating the airwaves. I will touch on some of the election night news in some different ways, however. I am excited to be working on what I think are some good upcoming articles and I have been discussing a few things with some of the folks that read here daily for future ways to get us back to discussing the things we need to be discussing. I do have a request of everyone though… If you have any guest pieces that you are thinking about, I am in need. I have one from Black Flag that I plan on posting this week, and I know many of you have been anticipating that one. But I have a specific need here…

Well Then…. Let’s Just Get it All Out There Part 1

Tonight I was able to catch back up and read a lot of the comments of the last couple of days. I was not surprised to find that there were quite a few that disagreed with me on several different areas. D13 took me to task a bit (at least I think so, he didn’t say my name, but I got the distinct impression that he was talking about me along with others). I was also accused of felony possession of kool-aid with intent to distribute by TexasChem. Finally, I was under fire from G.A. Rowe, but then again, he and I often disagree on minor things while agreeing on major ones. All three offered up that I was wrong. And I will take that criticism. I don’t mind a bit. For goodness sake that is what I am here for! Now let me say up front that I don’t take offense to a single one of these attacks on my positions…

Channeling John Adams

My wife and I were watching the first part of the HBO mini-series this evening that chronicled the contributions of John Adams during the time of our founders. I have watched it before, a while ago. Mrs. Weapon had not watched any of it. So we thought we would sit down and watch an episode each night that we can until we finish it. I was listening to the speech that he gave just before he left for Philadelphia as one of the 5 representatives for the congress being held there. As I did, something really struck home with me. That spark has put me back on my soapbox tonight. And that is that the people of the United States have completely lost sight of everything that the founders were striving for when they did the things that they did. We have fallen into traps that were laid with the best of intention in most cases, and nefariously in others. I hear the calls to return to our roots and I submit to you that we are not ready to return to our roots….

Dual Issue Article

I was sitting here thinking about what I wanted to write about tonight and there were several issues that interested me that I was considering. The problem is that none of them were issues that were going to be enough to fill up an entire article for the night. I wanted to discuss Barney Franks and his return to the Bill O’Reilly arena this evening. It certainly interested me, especially after watching it twice. Another topic that caught my eye, especially in light of some of the health care discussions that have been happening on the site lately, was that of 50 Doctors and medical professionals indicted by the federal government for medicare fraud. Neither of these issues warranted a full article for me this evening, and I didn’t want to start researching something bigger knowing I have some long work days coming up. So I decided to do both of them…

Differences in Sex Education Philosophy Part I

There was a bit of a debate on this subject in the guest commentary thread yesterday. I found that as I was reading it, I was wondering how much of what I believed about the subject was fact versus what I think I know. What better way to find out the facts than to do a little research and find out some of the truth on my own and present it to you. So I decided to do an article on this very subject. I have often been worried at the level of Sex Education being given to our children is not in line with the level should be. The results of America’s sex education programs are obviously not good, so where are we going wrong? Too much or too little sex education? Abstinence versus more comprehensive learnings? What about the seemingly earlier and earlier introduction of “alternative” lifestyle choices? Let’s take a closer look.

What… No Activist Court?

In a somewhat surprising ruling the California Supreme Court has upheld the people’s voice on Proposition 8. I say somewhat stunning because it is well documented the role of California’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in being an activist court. I have simply come to expect the California courts to ignore the law in favor of making an activist statement. And to see a California court not be activist is somewhat shocking. As many of you know I am one of those odd birds who falls in the realm of fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I want to explain that better below because someone stated that this was an impossibility, although I don’t remember who it was. But the point of this article is that the California Supreme Court last week gave its verdict on the legality of Proposition 8.

Let’s Just Clear A Few Things Up Shall We…

You know, I found myself arguing back and forth with Ray and Todd yesterday, trying to make my point. At some point I crossed a threshold and realized that I was writing another damn article just to make my point. That isn’t to knock those two. I love to be challenged. They were doing exactly what I want people to do. But there seems to be some sort of misunderstanding about where I stand on the issues and where I lean politically. More important, there seems to be some misconceptions about this site in particular and what I created it to do and what I hope it will become. So let’s just take some time to address those particular questions, shall we?

Punished For Her Views…

OK, so here we are on Friday night, and you know what? I don’t have a single guest commentary to post! I thought I had a couple to choose from but when I went back and looked at them they were the ones that have already posted. So I apologize that you are just going to have to deal with plain old me again tonight. Now, upon realizing my lack of a guest commentary, I am forced to very quickly find something to write about an insert into the program. I wanted to do something I was fired up about, but that wouldn’t require hours of research and tons of brain cells. After all, it is 2:00 am as I start this article. And then I realized that I already knew based on pure opinion what to write about…. The Miss USA fiasco. Because it is in line with the persecution of Christian beliefs that I have discussed in the past. And it deals a bit with gay marriage, which I have also discussed. Plus it gives me a free shot at Hollywood hate-monger Perez Hilton.

Homophobes, Racists, and Wall Street, Oh My

You know, I have already written on the fact that I am quite tired of the tactics of the far left in America when it comes to debate. The problem that I have is that the far left in America is completely unable to debate. Period. They just cannot do it. Their arguments are based on emotion, not facts. They rile up the masses using class warfare instead of telling the truth and finding a better way forward. They generally just annoy me. And when they realize that they are losing the debate horribly they resort to their fall back tactic… name calling.

Has the Time Come for Republicans to Marginalize God?

OK, I know that this is upsetting some of you already. You read that headline and the hackles on your back went up. Let me say first of all that I am not saying that the answer to this question is yes. I am also not saying it is no. I am saying I want to have a discussion with all of you smart folks about this. We have been discussing a way forward for the Republican party. I believe the answer may lie in changing the party’s stance in order to re-create the party as one more for the moderate voters in America. And I believe that this question has to be asked as we discuss this subject. It plays into a bunch of platform issues, and the reality is that the vast majority of Americans do not fall into the extreme right or extreme left.

Welcoming Michael Steele

On Friday, after six votes, the Republican National Committee elected former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele as the new chairman. I congratulate Chairman Steele on his selection, as he has certainly earned the position. I thought I would post here to offer some insight into this man and where he stands on the issues.

Libertarian Party Act IX

Well we are finally out of the holiday season for me. And that means we can get back to business. The next to last section of the Libertarian Platform. We have certainly covered a lot in all of the first 8 acts, and we now near the finish line. But we aren’t done yet. There are some inportant areas still to be covered and analyzed. I look forward to your thoughts on these three areas…

Libertarian Platform Act III

Now we get to dig into specific issues in the Libertarian Platform. The Statement of Principles was a good start but was just a precursor. We begin with the first half of the “Personal Liberty” section, which covers expression and communication, personal privacy, and personal relationships. I must say that I am enjoying the conversations each day brings and I am sure some of my commentary here is going to fire some folks up…

OK, OK… My Thoughts on Gay Marriage

OK, so I posted the “sexy, fabulous” post last night with a hint of my thoughts on gay marriage, but apparently did not do a good job because today has been a day where I have been blasted. It started with one of my favorite relatives this morning telling me that she disagrees with me. She thinks they should have all the same rights as straight couples. But it didn’t end there. As many of you know, I have a lot of gay friends. I got text messages and emails from all of them, too. So let me spell it out for everyone. When it comes to gay marriage…