Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

So San Francisco voted to keep military recruiters out of schools, and to ban handguns, ensuring that more citizens will die. And here was O'reilly's reaction:

"You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds,' " O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures.

"Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead," O'Reilly went on. "And if al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

You can read the San Francisco Chronicle's article here. The article goes on to say O'Reilly is a goofball and not taken seriously, according to most of the people interviewed. One guy did say that O'Reilly was seriously encouraging the terrorists to, and hoping they actually would, attack America. He's from some radical group that obsessively records every minute of O'Reilly's show, looking for ways to be offended, I guess. You'll have to read the article to find out who that group is.

I felt it was generally an ok article, as far as it went. Except that, for an article about someone saying if you don't let the military in your schools, and make it official government policy to hate the military and insult your schools, then maybe you shouldn't have the benefit of military protection, you would expect the question itself to be addressed. Keep in mind that the Little Red Hen was the good guy in that story. And if you don't know it, go read it. So was O'Reilly wrong?

*****

Side note: Picture the scene. A cop is on patrol, and over the little dashboard computer he gets a call. Witnesses are reporting that two homeless men are squared off in a knife fight. Proceeding to the scene, he sees the two men. The call has been a bit exaggerated; they aren't actually brandishing knives. The officer talks to them, getting a feel for the situation and what is going on. A woman comes out of a store nearby, walking over toward the scene.

Woman: Is everything okay? Are you all right?

Officer: Yes ma'am, I'm fine, everything's under control here, no problems.

Woman: I was talking to them (indicating the two homeless men).

If you guessed this took place in San Francisco, give yourself a gold star, or a gold box of Rice-a-Roni. Whichever.