The American Spectator

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Bumps on a Blog

7.21.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 5)

All of Congress, but most especially Democrats, should be glad Constitutional amendments are cumbersome to obtain. The bet here is, if you asked the American public if they'd approve an amendment which required every Congressman to work for a year in 40 hour-per-week, a low-pay, dead end job before being allowed to run for elected office, it would pass by a landslide.

The breadth of their collective ignorance regarding the day-to-day travails of ordinary Americans is staggering.
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

What is the one event most guys will tell a friend who is dating a divorced woman with kids not to confront? Yep, make no complaints on her kid's behavior, don't come between her and that kid over anything!

Why? Because she will fight to the death to protect her kids, even Margaret Meade warned us about the female mind years ago in such matters.

Now think about the Democratic world of today, is it not loaded with issues and positions that seem to be where Mom wants to protect her kids from all she considers evil?

Facts have nothing to do with her perspective, unless they are the facts she throws about. The body politic of this party embraces many causes, like children, and no one better come against them!

Just a thought, a perspective within shadows of reason.
-- Bob Philips
New Mexico

WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN
Re: Robert VerBruggen's Old Heller:

Mr. VerBruggen, you overcomplicate this matter. The recent Heller decision by the Supreme Court changed nothing at all in practical terms for citizens anywhere in this nation. As a Court ruling it was an empty suit, so to speak. The only winners in this case were and will continue to be lawyers at least in the short term. It took 32 years to get to this point and the Court makes a broad and in depth declaration about the individual right to keep and bears arms and then takes a pass on actually stating anything of actionable substance on the matter. Subjective words like "reasonable," "dangerous" with regard to weaponry are ready made vehicles for abuse and currently used as such. In my judgment, the Court has done more harm and good.

As to the expense of D.C. continuing to ignore the 2nd Amendment protections, that's mostly a nonevent. Like most governments, particularly of this size they have a full time legal staff and passing laws cost nothing in essence. This is mostly a fixed cost affair to them. The converse is true to those that challenge this. I'll be dead and buried before I'll be able to legally defend myself in Washington, D.C. and I have no plans to go there until I can. The principle is what is important here and the Court put out a lot of flowery words on this topic but failed to execute in any way that has practical meaning on the mean streets of D.C. As you pointed out, Heller can't register what D.C. calls a "machine gun" because the Court left it up to the very same people that deny the right in the first place to determine what the meaning of relevant words are. This is just one of the problems with having lawyers write laws for other lawyers to interpret so that other lawyers can profit from what those words mean according to the last set of lawyers to review the text of the words in question. I'm not raging on lawyers here but the point is still valid. The meaning of the words and founding documents in question have never been in question with common folk for the last couple hundred plus years. Its lawyers that turn "shall not be infringed" into "but, however," "maybe" etc. It took explicit language changes to get concealed carry laws on the books and those words were "shall issue." A licensed 2nd Amendment is less of a privilege than getting a drivers license.

If the Supreme Court had a "pair" those five Justices would come to a common understanding that the purpose of the Constitution and Bill of Rights is to protect "the people" from government and the Court's purpose is to protect the Constitutional. They made a declaration without teeth. This is like issuing a restraining order against someone that promises to kill someone else and then wondering why they still went ahead and killed. That's all the Supreme Court has done here, issue empty words. If Justice Kennedy can't grasp that, no one can help him.
-- Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia

Robert VerBruggen's article demonstrates one of the truism's of the liberal mindset: nothing, not even a Supreme Court decision, is the final word on anything if liberals disagree with it.

Is a better reason to own a handgun than knowing some people don't believe the rule of law applies to everyone?
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

NO END IN SIGHT
Re: Charles Campbell's letter (under "A Life of Its Own") in Reader Mail's Remedial History:

I agree with Charles Campbell that "Nothing like a discussion of abortion to get people really going." Abortion is one of those issues which are so fundamental they expose the fault lines among opinions and put differences into sharp relief. As careful as Mr. Campbell writes in response, he only ends up demonstrating my criticism of Libertarians and their approach toward abortion.

Letter to the Editor

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