The Georgia General Assembly, Alberto Gonzales, and the Virginia Tech Massacre

© Dr. Gary D. Lemmons, April 22, 2007

Now come, the Republican dominated Georgia General Assembly leadership with the news that in next year’s session they plan to push for a 5.75% income tax and a 5.75% basic value added (sales) tax to replace the array of taxes currently imposed here in Georgia. What an enlightened thought for a group of politicians! I am for anything that will allow all inhabitants of the state…citizens, legal aliens, or otherwise; law-abiding or methamphetamine producers; aged or the flower of youth… to make their contributions to the coffers used to pay for the services provided for the common good. I feel certain everyone will feel better and be more able to sleep peacefully at night.

Of course, it looks as though we are going to get the honor and privilege of paying for a special session (God help us) of the legislature because the Governor and the General Assembly cannot agree on how much of our current tax revenue to spend on programs…worthwhile or otherwise.  This is just another example of the inefficiency and ineptness of government.  The Republican dominated General Assembly and the Republican Governor Sonny Perdue cannot agree…now that is an interesting conundrum, isn’t it?

Wasn’t it W. C. Fields who once said, “This is carrying democracy too far!

The performance of Alfonso, excuse me Alberto… I always confuse his name with a more Mafioso type of nomenclature…Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week revealed that former Secretary of Education Rod Paige is not the most bumbling and incompetent member to serve or to have served in the George W. Bush Administration. If Gonzales told the truth to the Senators, he needs, at the very least, to be suspended from office while he undergoes a full battery of medical tests. As little as he was able to remember about events less than six months old may be a sign of the early stages of some neurological disease. Of course, he might just be suffering from the Hillary Clinton “I Don’t Recall Syndrome”!  You will remember that our potential first woman President suffered from this malady during her grand jury testimony concerning the White Water Scandal of the mid-1990s.  In all fairness to Mrs. Clinton, the events that she was being questioned about occurred some years before as opposed to barely six months. 

Bottom line…I didn’t believe Hillary and I don’t believe Alfonso…excuse me…Alberto!

The massacre at Virginia Tech is one of those unexplainable manifestations of evil that rears its head from time to time in our post-modern society. While tragic in its scope to the victims and, in particular, to those families and individuals who lost loved ones and friends, there is no easy solution.

Certainly, additional gun control measures, it might be argued, could have mitigated the results of Cho Seung Hui”s rampage. Equally, it might be argued that the presence of a .9 mm Glock or a Strum Ruger .357 magnum in the hands of a competently trained student could have mitigated the results as well. This presumes that the armed student would have been prepared to kill, and that is where the rub comes. Most good people, even if they are trained in the proper use of firearms, are not prepared to “drop the hammer” even on a vile attacker without thinking about it. That is when they are more likely to be killed than to kill the attacker.

Consequently, I am NOT in favor of arming students, school teachers, school administrators, or even professors…albeit the notion is tempting from time to time.