July 14, 2009
Erosion of Truth
by Dave Morris
We're all familiar with the common phrases used to defend our right to keep and bear arms, like, "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy", or "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six." What we may not be familiar with is the cultural assault being perpetrated by the movies, TV and news. There isn't a ghost behind every door, but there are tons of subtle suggestions and insidious attacks on our freedom by modern culture. If you don't believe me, observe how many times you see happy 4th of July instead of Happy Independence Day. Everyone has a July 4th, but we have Independence Day.
Anti-gunners run in circles with those who hate freedom. (Hate is not too strong a word in this case.) They are part of the culture that denigrates America and its values of freedom. They hang out with the Hollywood and New York crowds that so often belittle guns in public, but in private use firearms to protect them. Take Rosie O'Donnell for instance, she won't carry a gun but admits her body guard needs one to protect her kids on the way to school.[1] O'Donnell claims Warner Brothers arranged this, and the security company required it, but that is a difference without a distinction. She is allowing someone else to carry a firearm in defense of her and her loved ones. How about Sean Penn carrying a shotgun in New Orleans after Katrina, this in the same city where law abiding citizens had their guns confiscated by government authorities when they had done nothing wrong.[2] If it were up to the liberal elites gun control would apply only to the people "they" deemed unsafe.
These are the kind of people who make the movies and produce news casts that show people owning guns as dangerous threats to society. In the most recent example a mad man walks into the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C. and starts shooting people. He is eventually felled by a guard-with a firearm-but all the news talks about is the mad man and his hate. There isn't much about the heroics and bravery of the now dead security guard who gave his life to save so many more or just as important, how if law abiding citizens were allowed to carry a concealed weapon in D.C. perhaps this wouldn't have happened at all. I can't find any news stories wondering why there was another shooting in a "gun-free zone".
Typically, television and movies tend to show gun use only by gangs, thugs, drug lords, bank robbers and government authorities. Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" is the only movie in recent memory that can be cited as showing a private citizen using a firearm in defense of life and property. He uses a rifle to get a violent gang off his property and a handgun to rescue a neighbor girl from certain assault. (Lest the movie lean too much towards freedom there is a scene portraying the internal demons he faces due to his service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, implying the Army is evil.
Well done nickijo 
Eric, don't be a putz. You have the opportunity to be a really outstanding City Administrator so long as your thinking is not shaped by the pea-brains around you.
Hey nickijo,
There are plenty of people who favor sensible gun regulation that are not from New York or Hollywood (CA). They are not eltite liberal limousine liberals that hate freedom. They are ordinary people who think that something as potentially dangerous as a gun should be regulated.
As Kool has pointed out on this blog, booze, cigarettes, and cars slaughter more people in a single day than are killed by guns in decades.
But alcohol, cigarettes, and cars are all subject to regulation. Something actually designed to kill, such as a gun, would seem to me also be a reasonable subject for regulation.
Wether that regulation is sensible or not depends entirely upon the people that we choose to make our regulations. The politicians at the state level in Tennessee have voted for less regulation of guns. We will now get to see how the politicians at the municipal level feel about the issue.
Amen Jim Chittum.
Also, I find it VERY funny and typical that KA chose NOT to mention anything about the Liberty Park story in today's paper. I remember when just a few short years ago, so many non-downtown/non-westside folks were complaining up-and-down about they don't get any parks. I remember on this very blog some other folks tried to argue that the Liberty Park was going to be grand, great and a whopper of an eastside park, and it fell on deaf and bitter ears.
Go ahead KA. Go ahead and talk about the millions being spent on the multiple phases of Liberty Park.
I figure you won't. Why would you? It's counter to your dogma and agenda.
That said, I so excited about Liberty Park even though I live over on the Westside. Good for the Eastside and really just good for Franklin in general. See y'all on the Frisbee Golf Course Dudes!
Sorry Silence,
I was overwhelmed with this morning's banner implying something other than what I heard from the BOMA meeting the other night (Wonder if Cook & Crew would ever have a banner titled "LIBERTY CREEK POLLUTED").
Anyway, cool Silence - how many soccer fields were they able to construct? (No need to answer).
Frisbee golf? PLEASE ... !
Go check out the 6 people using the "disc" course at Crockett as you make your way to the HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of people trying to use all of the soccer fields at Crockett.
I can guarantee you if Franklin built even 8 soccer fields they would be out of capacity the first season.
That's an awful lot of revenue to be trading off for a few "dudes."
Can't comment as I have't been there yet since the start of it long ago S.D.
There was alittle talk about how close it was to interstate interchange and secluded playground location. The hills and wooded area appeals to some like me and maybe conservationist.
Another commented he would carry if he went. I would worry more about deer in rut, copper heads & other ankle bitters then bad guys
Nickijo -
Don't know where you've been going to watch your movies lately, but there are countless examples of non-cop, non-thug, average, every day citizens triumphing over evil using firearms coming out of Hollywood these days...it's kind of a universal theme. I think your knee-jerk, don't-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-
arguement, right wing, conservatism is showing. Not that I don't agree with your basics...just understand that it's not your average we-believe-everything-we-read-on-a-bumper-sticker citizen who peruses the Koolaid blog and stay away from the gratuitous crap.
You obviously missed my humor and irreverence. However, your whining about the Soccer is always funny.
Have you approached the City of Franklin about building a park just for Soccer Fields? Or maybe just a couple of fields even? Where would you want it to go? Maybe where they're proposing the Workforce Housing should go over near Hard Bargain? Oh wait, maybe a better spot would be at the old CCOF. Yes, that's the ticket. That would be a much better use of the property. Or maybe the front of Harlinsdale. Is that what you're thinking
Anyway, the point is, doesn't Williamson County have enough Soccer Fields between the Rec Center, Downs Blvd. and Crockett Park? There are dozens and dozens between those sites alone.
I will say though, it does seem like a raw deal your Mens League got from the County. To that point, are y'all still playing? Do you still have that league? If not, what happened? I thought y'all had a field to use.
What we really need is miniature golf in WILCO. If I had the fundage (I know it is not a real word but I am watching Wayne's World...), I would do that in a heartbeat...and it would have the tackiest, biggest foaming volcano and dino with wiggling tale you have ever seen.
S.D., looks like you could replace Doug Hood after he gets through coasting to retirement!
First thing's first:
"Workforce housing" - what a crock of that shit homage-to-myself that is - it's even worse than Klatt's parochial siren song city logo.
I have an idea, let's call it the John "Cabrini-Green" Schroer Housing Development!
Fields at CCOF? Yes.
Fields at Harlinsdale? Absolutely.
Rec Center fields are run by the County. Need I say more?
(Keep in mind, people outside of the county are allowed to use the Rec. Center - Hood used the 'non-county soccer player' excuse as his first line of bullshit before moving on to the fields are getting worn out and subsequently having that bullshit exposed by Andy Cordan).
The fields on Downs ARE the county fields S.D.
I suspect Crockett will go the way of a private public park, if that makes sense. They're essentially at capacity - imagine that - the epicenter for the BWSC and TNFC and they can't even host a tournament.
Adult league? You know who to contact at the MTSA to get those answers.
Can't wait to see how the joint John Schroer Memorial Workforce Housing Project with F$$D proceeds. His handling of the sale of the Iron Horse property as Chairman of the F$$D was a complete abortion. Maybe he'll consult a real estate professional this time around.
Nahhhhh! He'll handle it himself, and it'll be totally F$%&ed up.
So if I take a left off Wilson Pike onto McEwen and follow the goat path till I get to Road Closed barriers is it OK to walk or bike the rest of the way to enjoy Liberty Park ?
Dang, franklinbootgirl, I love it. And let us build it within site of the sacred Down Town Franklin, so all the potential tourists can easily find it. It really will draw a crowd, but let us build it as gaudy as possible.
You would have your Damn soccer fields if you would agree to have those badly needed Greek Columns
Bootgirl/Robert---Great! Build it next to the ugly police building and the dinosaur would hardly be noticed since the building will draw all the looks.
ANON 1:58--Do you really think the city manager will go against his handlers? He is the city hired and paid mouth piece for the mayor and his cronies both elected and unelected.
Took our grandson this spring in FL.
At night of course as it adds to the fun and mystery with the lights and all.
We use to take our own children to several in IL. and run by local Parks system.
CHI-Town off the lake and several in the Burbs. Great fun for family and kids of all ages. Locals got discount to play.
OK anon 1:58 and 9:11 six guns on the square @ high noon I"ve got 9mm on the 9/11
10:21 ?
There is nothing about guns in either post.
You need different drugs or glasses.
Okey Dokey Anon 10:21...and I have an RPG...wait, are those street legal?
Anon 10:04. You got the directions just right. Isn't it just lovely how the city sold McEwen Drive to the developers with a promise (I guess) to provide a east-west corridor to the new interstate bridge. You got it right----goat path to dead end if you're going west and then the tour thru McKay's Mill to get to the newest park. Be aware of torn down guard rail at top of the hill on McEwen as it has now been demolished three times and if you go off there you gonna need full health insurance!!! Bev.B. ain't worth a damn to help her neighborhood.
Hey Tallboy,
Perhaps you could explain exactly what steps Bev Burger should have taken to prevent or fix the McEwen goat path?
Heard local tow truck operators like McEwen just the way it is tallboy.
Jimmy C.- Bev is quoted in this morning's W.A.M. as saying "getting other aldermen to support the completion of McEwen Drive's remaining phases is her No. 1 priority. I've been working on it for three years-----". If you haven't got something accomplished in three years, you are not effective and need to step down. It applies to business, coaching and other performance based systems. When streetscape started she should have stood in front of the equipment in protest. Some get brick and some get goat paths!!!
Good question and it seems it is a complex one too. You may recall folks banding together years ago begging for improvements before the build out along and near that goat path.
They got promises instead and loads of traffic including heavy construction traffic creating many close calls and accidents.
The problems started before Bev during the early years of the reign of terror however some think that her " go along to get along thinking" may have delayed those needed improvements.
Me again Tallboy,
I wish that things were as simple in government as they are in business or private matters. I really do. But they are not.
The fundamental difference is that in government, you are dealing with OPM (other people's money). So there is every kind of safeguard put in place (legal, environmental, financial, etc.) to protect the taxpayers interests. These safeguards unfortunately also bog down the process for an eternity.
If a road project takes eight years to wend its way through the thicket of state and federal approvals, it doesn't make much sense to hold an Alderman responsible for no solution in three years.
My best uneducated guess is that McEwen will not be driven through to Wilson Pike for five or six years regardless of whom is elected Alderman.
On your other issue, I will not dispute that Bev has been a tireless supporter of "streetscape". But I do not see how that translates into a failure to fix the McEwen goat path.
Finally, at their pay rate, I don't expect the Aldermen to be throwing themselves in front of bulldozers any time soon.
Actually, I think that the most insightful part of the quote from Bev is, "Now I know the system and I can do a better job of it."
"The system", huh. And just exactly what "system" might that be? The "you scratch my back (downtown) and I'll eventually scratch your back (everywhere else in the whole darn city) someday when Hell freezes over system"? That's the only "system" I'm aware of in Franklin. Hard to believe that anyone that runs for public office in Franklin has to be brought up to speed on that one.
Bev could remind those alderman, Planners staff etc. who are now whinning about funding and voted to load the area with developments before infrastructure, who also give big tax breaks to Nissan and ignored citizens who asked for sensible planning.
Follow through no matter who is elected.
I know ask the development industry PAC funders what to do about it !
If Jim is right about McEwen not being improved to Wilson Pike in the next five or six years (he's probably right even though it is a "city street") could we at least try to get it finished from the abrupt dead end to the interstate bridge that is new but seems to only provide east access to Nissan and Cool Springs??
Hey Tallboy:
If my memory serves me right, I think that there was some plan to reopen that stretch of McEwen prior to the final completion of the new road all the way to Wilson Pike.
I will have to ask Alderman Burger if that is the case.
Guess those pesky land owners want a fair price from COF in order to finish that portion Jim.
Hey Tallboy:
I asked Alderman Burger when that section of McEwen would be fixed. Here is what she said:
"It will get voted on in the next two months for funding, and then I hope we can get construction started in November or December."
jimboy, thanks for the info. Let's write the dates down. Any slight chance for brick pavers?? Hell, I'd be happy with paving the road!!
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