"THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE"

PREMIUM? ECONOMY?  GUN CONTROL?


 Some of you here are old enough to recall Marshall McLuhan's groundbreaking work -THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE.  Younger voters already get it 'under the skin' - so to speak.  Mass media's power to distort accounts for their exodus from cyberspace into coffee houses to read poetry.  Basically McLuhan's ideas are about how the media itself - the very way messages are presented - inform the message itself.  The message takes on other messages in addition to the initial message.  The original message is often skewed to an opposite meaning. 

Advertising in particular capitalizes on media's power to do that.  Ponder for a moment, that small monitor mounted on the gas pump that repeats commerical messages while you stand...idle?  Alone in your thoughts?  Well, SOMEBODY decided you didn't have enough on your mind, right?  That little insertion into your archeocortex might tell you the medium is the 'massage' if you weren't already too soaked to care.  Too soaked even while you are pumping gas, even while you are experiencing the Presidential Tweet's power to wrench the Second Amendment free of the Constitution and jettison it out past Pluto.


I KNOW.  I KNOW, My LEO friends are groaning -"GET TO THE POINT, MARLYB!!! KISS!!"

PUHLEEZE!!!

Bear with me, Friends.

Here's the breakdown of what's buggin' MarlyB...



Last couple of days, I saw a photo of President Obama in Yahoo, then in Youtube - each accompanied by an invitation to vote 'yes or no on gun control.'  Hmmmm...



I didn’t click on it.  I don’t know who generated it, but it got me thinking about how Executive Action has been deployed into the heart of the Second Amendment as a marketing tool for 2nd Amendment reform.  Now my brain is exploding with 1000 questions.  Don't get me wrong.  I am into the free market as much as the next patriot, but when the Oval Office uses Executive Order to ramp up an advertising campaign...gets kinda screwy around the edges.  And frankly, scarey.

Creative Applications of Executive Orders is nothing new, but things THIS time, especially in the absence of Long War Topspin, seem to have gone into Constitutional Reform Warp Drive. Gives me the WILLIES!



CAN public pressure skew ordinary deliberations of government once the SHEER WEIGHT of Executive Action spins the Twitter-sphere into a mad frenzy?  CAN cyber-space warp-drive Congressional action into the Wrong Box? Should Executive Action be conveniently employed as a mere prompt to a flurry of legislation?  Or is THAT crafty Medium is the Massage Gimmick a MISUSE OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER? 


Clearly it is.  Ok.  So what's NEW about that?  Plenty.  Something unique happened last week.  Executive Action was used for the sole purpose of building a launching pad to infuse public discourse with Gun Control Fait Accompli.  To do that, Executive Order was used as the ignition switch for the Mother of All Internet Polls.  Surely, the President's advisors anticipated public reaction and moved to capitalize on it. Executive Action was used as a convenience to solicit a nationwide gut-level response.  Obama's 23 boils down to this massage -  "The President has already authorized your wishes. Now Tweet your vote to sign it into law." 


EEK.


To me,  'Executive Order as Marketing Tool' is an inappropriate use of presidential power.  We should ALL be casting a critical eye on this kind of Madison Avenue Oval Office precedent.  We NEED to call 'em at their game.


Howzabout we DON'T poll this one, Folks??


Why boycott polls?  They're rigged.  Executive Action lends considerable weight to polls in cyberspace, yet the  main question has NEVER changed.  That is - WHO writes polls and WHY?  NOW more than ever we should ALL be thinking about THAT when the ONLY function of Executive Action appears to be simply to LEAD public discourse as a means to ramp up legislation.  WE have too much at stake not to question this. 


Another thing that gives me major creeps.  Should we be be alarmed that Internet chatter may become the foundation for so-called "research"??  As in  "X% of the nation's voters polled felt that...etc."  Kinda like the New York Times poll on steroids.  Get the picture? 


Frivolous use of Executive Order is a BAD MOVE. Just because Executive Action is ineffectual, that does NOT render it benign.  The insidious, dangerous message of frivolous Executive Action is that our democratic system is somehow ‘inadequate to serve.’   That is a very powerful message coming from the White House.  When citizens gub that up - "Just let the President handle it ALL!" we are ALL in trouble.  We have delegated our responsibilities away.


It's a growing trend.  We've seen the downside of overbroad Executive Action too frequently in the last couple of admins.  We've seen executive order get the ball rolling on unlimited, doctrineless war-making.  We've seen it authorize warrantless searches of the individuals’papers, effects and library book lists - permanently. 


We are at a critical juncture. 


Shorn of the immediacy of 911, or the even bare semblance of protecting national security, we are seeing Executive Action become a marketing tool to poll the nation on  federal standardization of restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.


Can we afford to see that, People? How can we preserve Democracy under the storm of whim?


Executive Action is NOT a dog and pony show for the 'applause-o-meter.'  Presidential orders should NOT be a first step in legislating our Second Amendment guarantees away by a Twittery 'show of hands.’  We are in VERY dangerous waters.



Let's call for DISCRETION on the part of EVERY POTUS from here on out.  Let's call for ORDINARY deliberation of government in this and ALL serious matters directly tied to our Constitution.  Let's call off the the 'Wag the Dog' fumblers in the Oval Office.  These guys are rank amateurs.  So let's put 'em on notice.  Because that's OUR duty, Patriots.  Can you dig it?



Lastly, I disapprove of any Executive Action that gratuitously acknowledges  the requirement of congressional approval.  Congressional approval is NOT a gift bestowed by the White House.  THAT patronizing, sad and strange reminder torques my jaw nearly as much as ANY Executive Action that unapologetically bypasses due process and our system of checks and balances!


 


"WHAT'S IN YOUR EXECUTIVE ORDER???"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message.

Sometimes the KISS is a lonnnng one, Mikie.  LOL!!

OK.  So what we are looking at here is a POTUS under pressure to DO SOMETHING. 

Hmmm...so uhhh....just how DOES the POTUS "DO SOMETHING" without sending the deleterious message that our democratic system CANNOT serve by means of the ordinary deliberation of government??? 

IS President Obama sending an accidental message that the Second Amendment is inadequate to protect our nation's children?  That We are all, somehow, complicit in our children's demise by exercising our right to keep and bear? 

A LOADED message.

ON THE FLIP SIDE

Another example of The Media is the Message.  A subtext that complicates Second Amendment advocacy with a strange, contradictory message.  This poster suggests concealed carry should be the privilege of a small sector of potential victims.  Pretty ones.

Would THIS poster's message carry the same weight if the model were NOT attractive enough to be a - gasp - 'candidate for rape'?

Ok MarlyB on the photo of the gal with the pistol I was wondering what comic book/magazine  was to her right?  LOL

MarlyB you have an amazing mind. I am as always thouroughly impressed by your writing skills. BRAVO you should be a writer. I will buy your books.

One of our PL LEOS pointed out how the First and Second Amendments are interlocked.  Of course, all the Constitutional amendments interlock.  That's it's brilliance.  And, brilliantly, the Constitution interlocks with another document that explains, before the fact, how the Second Amendment serves as Democracy's 'teeth'.   Call it an 'advance' Presidential Order...

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription


IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.


The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,


When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Polls are stupid, especially the way they are implemented here.

Another thing: this topic is just one of those topics that gives everyone a ...... well, the need for a cold shower.

I really do not think it is really possible to have a reasonable discussion on it. For instance, too many view it as an all or nothing proposition. If I say I want universal background checks, full registration (with privacy protections, of course), and more scientific studies, hardliners say I want to repeal the 2nd Amendment.. So, with that, I'll join the chorus of inane corrolaries, memes, poorly researched infographics, and the like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xod1ZuRc3rk  (Bill Maher: 2nd Amendment Is Not Under Attack, Your Other Rights Are)

BUMP

1/25/2013

This President has used more executive orders than Clinton,Bush1 and Bush2 combined according to the stats I read.  That is nothing more than circumventing our system of government.

An administration that wants to ban all guns yet illegally sends Mexico hundreds in operation Fast&Furious.

The republicans cry that our individual rights are being eroded yet they under Bush2 gave us the Patriot act which eroded more civil liberties than at any time in U.S. history.

The argument that the 2nd amendment is a states militia/guard right and not an individual one is laughable. The entire Constitution and the Bill of Rights are solely INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS granted by our creator. It grants the branches of government authority FROM US! If the gun control advocates argument is to hold water then everywhere in the constitution the word PEOPLE must be replaced with the word STATE. This would in effect make the Constitution worthless.

BUMP!!! 

It looks like snopes has done a write-up on that hoax, Al:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/executiveorders.asp

...

...

You know...it's really disheartening to see people I know normally do a little fact checking just roll over and spew the first chain letter that lands in their email. This whole topic has made normally sensible people lose all perspective. Very depressing. :(

Under ordinary circumstances, Al, I would've PM'ed you advising this--but the way people in general have been going full steam ahead with complete fantasy in order to advance their own paranoid agenda has really tweaked me off. I apologize that you had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For you, I will assume that this was an honest mistake.

You don't need either. I already posted the correct information in the prior response and used a good source. Please don't try to tell me that the National Archives website isn't a trustworthy source or I shall sink further into despair.

Hey, tssssk, tsssk, ... finger wagging leads to things like, "Them are fightin' words, mister."

I once grabbed a fingerwagger by the finger who had been wagging his finger close enough to my eyes that I could see his fingerprints. Putting my entire weight on the finger with a two-handed 'finger lock' ended up with my perp rolling on the ground in complete submission. He ultimately was not hurt but completely stunned that he ended up on the ground faster than gravity could keep up with him.

Moral of the story: Please don't wag your digit.

Marly, I noted early on in the post the gal the Colt Python. (wide angle lens makes it bigger than it is.) I would suggest that she have a better grip on that weapon. All her teensy fingers are wrapped around it including her trigger finger around the outside of the trigger guard. Unless of course, she has a sixth finger on that hand.

I absolutely love the fact that "Leave me alone I'm Eating" is leading the pole.

That is all.