• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 270 0

of us think environmental problems pose a serious threat to the quality of life in the United States. Eighty-five percent are worried about pollution of rivers and lakes, 82 percent worry about toxic waste and polluted drinking water, 78 percent worry about air pollution, and 67 percent worry about damage to the ozone. Eighty-nine percent of the people recycle and 72 percent check the label to avoid buying toxic products, while 60 percent would rather see the government push for more energy conservation than an increase in production of oil, gas and coal. When given the choice between “economic growth” or “environmental protection,” assuming you couldn’t have one without the other, Americans choose environmental protection. Even two-thirds of Republicans in one poll responded by saying they would vote for an environmentalist candidate over a non-environmentalist. Four times as many Americans trust environmental organizations to know what’s better for the ecology than they do the government.

THAT’S RIGHT, AMERICANS ARE ECO-WACKOS! They would actually put the survival of some spotted snail fish over having a few more dollars in their pocket each week. How misguided is that? Don’t they get it—this is OUR planet and we can do with it what we damn well please! Give these Americans a chance to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles (industry experts expect hybrid cars to soon make up 10-15 percent of America’s annual car sales), and they flock to the showroom floor! What’s the world coming to—the world?

Ninety-four percent of the American public want federal safety regulations enacted on the manufacture and use of all handguns—and 86 percent want this even if it makes guns more expensive! Seventy-three percent of Americans want a mandatory background check on anyone buying a gun. They want a five-day waiting period before you can actually get a handgun. They believe that you must have a police permit before you can own a handgun, that guns should be childproof, and that if you beat up your spouse, you shouldn’t be able to own any gun. And in states like New York, 59 percent want an outright ban on all handguns.

In the 2000 election, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was able to defeat nine of the twelve candidates on their “Dangerous Dozen” list of elected officials who were deep in the pocket of the gun lobby. The NRA spent more than $20 million that year, focusing most of it on two of the largest hunting states in the country—Michigan and Pennsylvania—in the hopes of electing pro-gun governors and defeating Al Gore. What happened? Gore won both states, and the people of Michigan and Pennsylvania elected governors whom the NRA labeled as “anti-gun.” This came two years after the NRA-backed Republican incumbent in Michigan, U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham, was defeated by anti-gun forces.

The NRA is so out of touch with even their own members, that, when NRA members in Michigan were polled, this is what the Lansing-based market-research company EPIC-MRA found out:

• 64 percent of NRA members favored mandatory reporting of private handgun sales;

• 59 percent favored regulations requiring that guns be stored unloaded;

• 68 percent supported creating uniform safety standards for domestic and imported guns;

• 56 percent supported a law requiring a five-day waiting period before purchasing a gun;

• 55 percent were in favor of banning high-capacity magazines that hold the ammo.

AMERICANS WANT THE GUNS PRIED FROM THEIR COLD, DEAD HANDS! Only 25 percent of us own a gun. The majority know they are less safe with a gun in the house. Why is this? Because more than a million of us have been killed by guns since Kennedy was assassinated. We couldn’t have killed that many of our countrymen if we’d fought the Vietnam War another fifteen times! That means everybody knows somebody who at one time or another was shot with a gun. And you know what happens when that many people see firsthand the tragedy of gun violence—they end up hating guns! And that’s the majority of the country.

Eight in ten Americans believe that health