No Big Deal

In Imperium Primum Officium II's latest blog entitled "What's the Big Deal?", the author argues in favor of lowering the punishment for marijuana offenders. Like many people under 60, I also agree. I myself am not a marijuana consumer but, I know plenty of people who are. Not one of them have ever hospitalized due to their marijuana use. Much like the prohibition days, the war on drugs is not going so well for our law enforcement agencies. While I agree with the author, I would say it's time to take it a step further than just lowering the punishment. Texas, and the United States, should legalize it and generate taxes from the sales. The laws and punishments should be no different than that of alcohol.

Texas' Governor Greg Abbott is among many of the United States governors that have vowed to not allow refugees from Syria in their state. Our governors are not alone. Many countries in Europe are not allowing Syrian refugees into their borders either. This is something that is both difficult and extremely important to get right. Texas is not on the right track. Offering SOME form of help would be the first step. Instead of a "Just Say No" campaign against Muslim refugees, Texas should be trying to contribute in some way to the world's problems instead of making these problems worse.

Texas, nor any other state, has the right to deny these refugees and the U.S. government has warned them of that fact. The states' fears are that we will be allowing Islamic extremist into the country. Many of them are saying that we don't have enough security measures to allow these refugees into the country. The U.S. government puts each refugee through almost every U.S. government's agencies' background check. In order to do this, they need time to get their own paperwork in order before they are even allowed to apply. In order to house these people until they have been cleared we need land and resources. Both of which we have but, are not utilizing. The midwest has plenty of room. Let's get these people cleared so that they may get on with their lives. It's a crying shame we have not done so already. The whole world is at fault here.

Give Me Texas Or Give Me Death's Self Proclaimed, Untrustworthy Author.

There are many problems with Give Me Texas or Give Me Death's recent article, "Is Texas Crazy?" One such problem is that the author is against the new law yet, the article uses arguments in favor of the law. "So who are we to state for a fact that non-licensed students will respect the rules of this bill and not bring a weapon to campus." This is among the top arguments used by supporters of the bill. Supporters argue that campuses are currently a gun free and yet, that is not stopping criminals from coming on campus and imposing their will with their guns.

The author also goes on to call all college students idiots that can't be trusted, in the following statement, "College students don't take anything serious. You can't trust them." So what do we take from this article? Well we know that the author is a college student, that doesn't take anything serious and can't be trusted. Essentially the author is telling us to disregard this whole article.

Pumped up & pimped out

Texas should be compensating the men and women known as "student-athletes" for their time and effort put into a program that is worth millions. The University of Texas, Texas A&M, and every other school that participates in college athletics are making incredible amounts of money off of unpaid athletes. The Longhorns average about $63 million per home football game. That's not to mention how much money a game might bring to the private sector outside of the Longhorn program. That's over $63 million dollars and not one dollar is allowed to go to the stars of the show. This is due to the NCAA rules on amateurism.

This past summer, there was a court ruling by the US Ninth Circuit court of Appeals for the Ed O'Bannon case where the NCAA used his likeness for a video game and did not compensate him for efforts. The NCAA was ordered to pay $46 million in lawsuit vs O'Bannon where the NCAA was found to be in violation of the U.S. antitrust laws for the use of O'Bannon's image in video games and other broadcasts. This is a major step in the right direction for college athletes. 

Johnny Manziel, and the media attention that he captured, brought Texas A&M $150,000 in #2 replica jersey's alone with $120 million in total revenue for the 2012 season. Manziel was not compensated at all. Meanwhile, his coach, Kevin Sumlin got a $1.1 million raise. How are these men like Johnny Manziel and Colt McCoy not paid anything, when the people they are playing for are making millions of dollars? NCAA and the schools that the athletes pay for it justify it by "paying them with an education." That's like enslaving someone to work on your farm but saying it's fine because you're teaching them to read and write.

While we are most certainly headed in the right direction, it's cases like O'Bannon's that are going to force us to keep looking into compensating these players for their time and effort into the sports that our state colleges are making so much money on.

Putting them down without looking it up

Last month blogger Katie Singh wrote an article for the Burnt Orange Report titled, "Is Anyone Surprised Texas’ History of Islamophobia Led to a Child’s Arrest?" A very leading question, no doubt about it. In the article she goes on about how "the story is infuriating for more reasons than I can count" where she asks stupid questions like, "how come a 14 year-old (in a NASA T-shirt, no less!) gets arrested bringing in a clock, yet white kids can open carry actual guns without consequence?" Katie continuously blames our flawed system in case where she knows has no facts.

She is partially right about a lot of our problems here in the state, like many idiotic claims that all Muslims are terrorists or this church that posted a sign that was clearly outside of the separation of church and state. These people are morons but, that does mean that you can automatically claim that the school and/or police department are in the wrong. With a little digging you can find out that, Ahmed forced a lot of situations to happen that cause a great deal of alarm. Since then the school have requested permission from Ahmed's family to release their statement. However, since the case is/was dropped against the school and police, all you will ever be likely to hear is Ahmed's side of the story. In order to protect the officers involved, the police will not release their statements either.

So at the end of the day we, originally myself included, have all been condemning this school and the responding officers without the knowledge of any real facts of what actually happened that day. Almost everyone involved is at fault. From the bigots saying idiotic things about Muslims, to those of us that jump to our Muslim friends' sides, we should be ashamed for passing judgment say hastily and without the proper knowledge.

In Joan Neuberger and Ellen Spiro's recent article "Campus carry wrong for UT faculty, students", they support the continuing fight against Senate Bill 11. This new law allows students with concealed handgun licenses (CHL) to legally carry on campus, while giving the schools the right to declare some parts of their campus as "gun-free zones."

Laws or rules against concealed carry will not stop anyone who wants to do harm to you or others. Criminals and those who intend to do people physical harm, do not care about laws. They will bring their gun onto campus, or anywhere without extensive security, and do as they wish. CHL holders are typically law abiding citizens with a desire to properly defend themselves against those who wish to impose harm on them or those around them.

Unfortunately, 9 people have lost their lives this week, when an armed shooter entered the Oregon Community College campus near Roseburg, Oregon, and opened fire on students there. These people relied on first responders to rescue them from this clearly troubled shooter. Chris Mintz, a US Army veteran, rushed the shooter, getting shot 6 times. If there had been someone like Chris that was armed and willing to defend the class, this tragic story could have had a better outcome.

Senate Bill 11 is not here to give us all the right to start reenacting John Wayne movies in the middle of campus, or start waving our guns around threatening people who don't support the same view points in classrooms. The law is here to allow us to defend ourselves and the people around us. We don't always have time to wait for the police to show up. We must defend ourselves from danger as it presents itself. I can guarantee you that should the need arise, I will defend myself and my classmates with my life if that's what it takes.

May our thoughts and prayers be with those families affected in Oregon.

Pressing Rebellion (A New Problem with the Confederacy)

As statues are removed, names of schools and buildings changed, we have to wonder, "what is the criteria for this"? John Nova Lomax points out in his article The Problem With Mirabeau Lamar,
that it's certainly not just being a slave owner or doing horrible things. The real problem seems to be that they were associated with the Confederate States of America. What we are really trying to get rid of is not hate as so many of us think. What we are trying to get rid of is the glorification of rebellion, more specifically taking up arms against our federal government. I do not believe that we will ever have such a large rebellion as the Civil War. However, as the nation continues to be fueled by race baiters and hatred, what will bring this current unrest to an end?