Last night, I watched a rerun of speeches from Friday by some prominent conservatives at one of their conventions, the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference. Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul helped rally the faithful. Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association also alerted folks to the attitudes about gun ownership of Messiah Obama’s underlings. (Cue music from the Wizard of Oz: duh-du-dut-du-duh-duh...)
Wayne quoted or played video clips from a number of them. Hillary Klin-ton betrayed her usual control-freak nature, wanting to register and license all guns everywhere and impose other onerous controls. Hypocrite “I support the Second Amendment” Obama — who never met a gun control proposal he didn’t like — was revealed for the two-faced fascist he is. Obama’s racist attorney-general, Eric “You Cowardly Americans” Holder, clearly has not changed since he was Bill Klin-ton’s pissant “point man” on banning guns: the stupid “assault” weapon ban is somehow now a good idea because Mexico is revealing the logical consequences of its (and our) obscene and immoral War on “Drugs” (i.e., a war on individuals who consume officially unsanctioned drugs).
Wayne even had a clip of himself confronting that monumental left-wing television ass, Chris Matthews. Matthews was yapping on like a two-bit chihuahua, baiting Wayne about “winning” (yeah, right...) the Heller Supreme Court case. Matthews sarcastically noted that NRA-types will no longer have to worry about “black helicopters” coming to confiscate Americans’ guns (how silly: doesn’t he know the ’copters will be a lovely chartreuse...?). He also asked what Wayne thought about the prospect of people walking down the street “carrying a bazooka” or having “burp guns” (geez; what century is this guy in?). About the “horrors” of individuals owning 50-caliber rifles. Blah-be-dee-blah-blah.
Instead of addressing the issue of private ownership of machine guns head-on with a resounding, “Hell, yeah!”, Wayne stumbled along, obviously avoiding a direct answer, yammering about “heavy restrictions” on machine guns that have been in place since the Thirties, etc. etc.
What Wayne should have done was point a finger at the prick host, Matthews, and said, “Do you support private ownership of SUVs? No one needs a vehicle that powerful. It’s a favorite form of transportation of drug dealers. Do you support uncontrolled ownership of the vehicle of choice of drug lords? And what about semi-trucks! Those can crush nearly any other vehicle on the road with barely a scratch to themselves. They’re a hazard to others simply by existing. Surely you don’t believe in private ownership of bulldozers, do you? Those can destroy a house in minutes. Do you?”
But, no, by constantly using the phrase “gun rights” instead of “individual” or “human” rights (even though the adjective for the former makes no sense and the adjectives for the latter are redundant), Wayne shifted the focus from the individual and his freedom to a focus on the physical object of a gun. Starting from the latter point, the discussion merely deteriorates into a “debate” as to which guns are or are not permissible.
It’s the same error so many people on all sides make on the inane arguments that consume Americans. Whether the issue is health care or immigration or welfare or self-defense or education or whatever, it’s a colossal waste of time babbling on about “how much” is “too much.”
Freedom is about people, not about things.
Freedom is an absolute. It’s an either/or proposition. (See my essay, “One Freedom.”)
Only slavery comes in degrees...and the temperature in this country is getting way too damned hot...
