Stan the Gummint Man (Ret.) sent me the Saloon column by a guy who claims to be their Washington bureau chief (which I find suspect, because I would have thought that such a post would require some level of smarts beyond that of a drunk squeegee guy) calling for the abolition of the Second Amendment.
Darned fine idea, I say. Yes, really!
However, in the interest of fairness, I would suggest that we at least go in numerical order and start with the First, and go all the way through the Tenth.
All of these amendments were, after all, written at the same time back in the Olden Days, making all of them equally outdated and immaterial to our modern world. And more damning, all of them were thought up by the same bunch of dead white guys. Many of whom owned slaves. So obviously they were evil and stupid. That's obviously why they thought press freedom was important.
It's not, though--it just causes problems.
If only we had some way to control violent movies and books and keep them from falling into the wrong hands and influencing people to do evil, and a way to keep people from using the media as a way to glorify their sociopathy...
While there is no way to guarantee that another Cho Seung-Hui would be deprived access to Quentin Tarantino films and instant posthumous celebrity aided and abetted by NBC News, hitting the delete button on the First Amendment surely would lower the odds against future mayhem.
Surely.
As I told Stan, anyone who can speak so cavalierly of "hitting the delete button," as if the combined deliberations and intelligence of our Founders was nothing more than a typo, is astounding and it marks the writer as a person of little intelligence and one not worth engaging in conversation.
Well, except to ridicule him.
(UPDATE: A more complete proposal for doing away with things that make people uncomfortable.)
Posted by Terry Oglesby at April 19, 2007 09:51 AMI saw that same article first thing this AM and thought the same thing. Change 2nd to 1st and hit the delete button and see how much that dimbulb complains.
Today is the anniversary of "the shot heard 'round the world", putting action to the beliefs and bedrock principles that would become this country and our Constitution.
I'm sure the irony of the date and Mr Shapiro's essay are lost on him.
Posted by: Nate at April 19, 2007 10:13 AMWell, it amazes me that some of those who would probably be the first to complain about those eee-vil Bushies infringing on their liberties would like stuff like this, messing with the Bill of Rights.
Posted by: Stan at April 19, 2007 03:44 PMThere have always been those who believe some rights are just all wrong. That whole "some are more equal than others" thing comes to mind.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at April 19, 2007 03:49 PM