Way back in 1993, there was an episode of "The Simpsons," in which Grandpa Simpson wrote a letter to the White House. Apropos of nothing, ol' Abe wanted the president to eliminate three states from the union because there are "too many states nowadays."
Grandpa added in his letter, "I am not a crackpot."
I thought of this while reading the latest missive from the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre, who had a lengthy opinion piece in the Daily Caller yesterday, explaining why Americans should be terrified enough to want to buy lots and lots of firearms.
During the second Obama term, however, additional threats are growing. Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States. Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, and though the states on the U.S./Mexico border may be the first places in the nation to suffer from cartel violence, by no means are they the last.
The president flagrantly defies the 2006 federal law ordering the construction of a secure border fence along the entire Mexican border. So the border today remains porous not only to people seeking jobs in the U.S., but to criminals whose jobs are murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping. Ominously, the border also remains open to agents of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Wait, it gets worse. LaPierre also envisions mass looting, debt riots, and the collapse of law-enforcement agencies. It's the kind of news you don't hear from President Obama -- who, of course, wants to disarm you for his own nefarious purposes -- and his "'mainstream' media enablers."
And then there's LaPierre's kicker: "These are perils we are sure to face -- not just maybe. It's not paranoia to buy a gun."
"Paranoia"? Who said anything about "paranoia"? This is simply a piece from a powerful right-wing lobbyist warning of Latin-American gangs, terrorists, and rioters, each of which are coming to attack you -- "not just maybe." Why would anyone think this sounds like "paranoia"?
Perhaps for the same reason Abe Simpson understood he might sound like a "crackpot"?
