I was watching the news reports of the senseless carnage that took place in that idyllic town in Connecticut and was overcome by an overwhelming feeling of grief and despair.  Over the next few hours, my grief was replaced with a firm resolve that I was going to do everything that I possibly could to help prevent innocent children from being gunned down by weapons that belong on a battlefield, not in the hands of our neighbors.  While I can't come up with a unified theory about the things that cause a person to reach a level of desperation and hopelessness that brings him or her to the point of taking the lives of fellow human beings, I can tell you what and who enables those sick individuals to effortlessly arm themselves.  Hint, it's the same folks who want to cut your Social Security and Medicare.

Obviously, I'm referring to the GOP, a political party of consummate bullies that vigorously defends their well heeled campaign contributor's.... oops, I mean their principles!  In my humble opinion, today's GOP has no political platform other than what is dictated to them by said contributors.  The end result is that you have a party of extremes that defines "freedom" as the ability of an individual to own a weapon of war.  One that defines protecting seniors as making cuts to Social Security and Medicare by privatizing them, making cuts to them or raising their eligibility age.  One that defines "job creation" as giving corporations the "freedom" to offshore our jobs and be rewarded for it with tax breaks.  One that defines "patriotism" as sending our fighting men and women off to war only to cut their veteran's benefits when they return.

If you think that imposing the legislation that results from those extreme definitions on an unsuspecting public makes the GOP America's top bullies, you are wrong.  GOP politicians are squarely in the middle of the pecking order of bullies and take their orders from the real top dog bullies, their wealthy and corporate campaign contributors.  The GOP voter is at the bottom of the bullying food chain and is reminiscent of the stooge toady that follows the bully around the schoolyard, doing his bidding  in Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story.  In the case of the issue of gun control, I feel that the GOP is following the dictates of anti-gun control organizations like the NRA.  For the sake of our children, we must stop that kind of bullying immediately!