Slippery Slope

In this Deseret Morning News article, the News' editorial board has it completely wrong.

The board advocates for the ability of local law enforcement officials to "use information gleaned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to help track gun dealers who have a habit of selling guns to criminals."

It sounds like a good idea, right? Wrong. This is merely further opening the door to future legislation that will end in the disarmament of the citizenry as a whole.

Luckily Congress put a quick end to this one. The News decries Congress for its actions in holding strong to the 2nd Amendment by stating "Not every new law has to be a slippery slope that erodes basic rights. Sometimes, common sense measures can be put in place without leading to abuses."

To which I say, show me where a curb to constitutionally protected rights has not slipped down that slippery slope and then maybe I'll agree to something that constitutes a "common sense measure." Until then, I'll side with the NRA-influenced Congress in holding fast to the 2nd Amendment protections.

Take a look at a brief history of the erosion of our constitutionally protected rights through the "activists' asterisks."

If the we don't fight against laws such as this, we'll find the 2nd Amendment in a similar situation as the 1st - In McCain-Feingold, the Court recognized spending money as speech and then upheld the law that abridges that speech in direct contravention of the 1st Amendment.

For the 4th Amendment - Terry vs. Ohio opened the door to pretextual stops where a police officer can pull you over and then "progressively" discover "new evidence" to allow him to essentially search your car, your trunk, and your person all with just a suspicion - California vs. Ciraolo allows police to enter areas of your property if it falls outside the "curtilidge" and then defines curtilidge in rather fluid terms.

The rights under the 5th and 6th amendments have also come under assault, although to a much lesser extent.

The 10th Amendment has arguably suffered the most - Congress has dipped its hand into just about every aspect of life regardless of the limited powers granted to it by us through the Constitution.

So, I'm sorry if I just don't trust Congress to draw the line between my constitutionally protected personal right and "public safety" appropriately. There is little proof to demonstrate that Congress' minor abridgments of my rights will not end up like a toe in the door that ends up as an unwanted guest sitting in my living room.

The article ends with these two thoughts:
"The NRA is a powerful lobby. In many cases the organization has stood convincingly on principle. But not on this one. This move was simply emblematic of overreaction and unnecessary anxiety. It's fear mongering."

See above - "fear mongering" is appropriate where there is reason to be afraid. Noah was likely seen as a "fear monger" but, as it turns out, it was his detractors that were all wet.

"This was a classic debate between public safety and personal freedom. Public safety should have ruled the day. It didn't. And the nation less safe because of it."

Let's not forget that the Constitution was designed to create a government and the Amendments to the Constitution were designed to protect us from that government! The Founders had seen what unchecked centralized rule could do to the rights of the people and sought to create a system that prevented such unchecked tyranny. While our government is not tyranical, if we continue to welcome it's forays into constitutionally protected areas of our lives, we are only inviting that which we truly do not want, and that which we have been warned against.

The Nanny State

“Do we really need a surgeon general at all?... There are plenty of private groups that are fully capable of instructing us on how to be healthy, wealthy and wise without government involvement. The American Lung Association can tell us not to smoke. Alcoholics Anonymous can preach sobriety. The American Medical Association can lecture couch potatoes on the benefits of losing weight and exercising more. Planned Parenthood and the Family Research Council can fight it out over when and how we should have sex. Surely someone can deal with overweight children. Given the government’s track record of efficiency, being the nanny for 300 million Americans seems a little beyond its ability.” —Michael Tanner on one of many government social services that are extra-constitutional

“The eight Democratic presidential candidates assembled in Washington recently for another of their debates and talked, among other things, about public education. They all essentially agreed that it was underfunded—one system ‘for the wealthy, one for everybody else,’ as John Edwards put it. Then they all got into cars and drove through a city where teachers are relatively well paid, per-pupil spending is through the roof and—pay attention here—the schools are among the very worst in the nation. When it comes to education, Democrats are ineducable... [N]ot a one of them even whispered a word of outrage about a public school system that spends $13,000 per child—third-highest among big-city school systems—and produces pupils who score among the lowest in just about any category you can name. The only area in which the Washington school system is No. 1 is in money spent on administration. The litany of more and more when it comes to money often has little to do with what, in the military, are called facts on the ground: kids and parents. It does have a lot to do with teachers unions, which are strong supporters of the Democratic Party. Not a single candidate offered anything close to a call for real reform.” —Richard Cohen

If we sit back and wait for the government to do everything for us, we are likely to end up like a lot of those who were stranded in New Orleans post-Katrina: stranded, exposed to the elements, and feeling utterly alone.

The Fourth Seat will come

In 2012. Until then, why mess with something that is bound to be undone once a court reviews the arguments against it.

More importantly, however, is the question of why we are even considering giving D.C. a House seat. The Constitution clearly states that D.C. was supposed to occupy a space "not exceeding ten Miles square." Yet today, D.C. occupies nearly 70 square miles. If we simply comply with the Constitution and recognize its legal boundaries, we'll find that most of the D.C. "residents" were represented this entire time.

While that may open the door to more legislation - people claiming to have been disenfranchised by not being afforded the opportunity to vote for their representatives - it beats dealing with the nonsensical compromise involving Utah's eventual fourth seat.

Liberal hypocrisy

“We don’t give federal grants to tobacco companies to teach students ‘low-risk’ forms of smoking on the grounds that ‘kids are going to smoke anyway.’ We shouldn’t be giving federal grants to groups that sell contraception, to teach kids to use contraception.” —Jennifer Roback Morse

“Nonviolent offenders should not be serving hard time in our prisons.” —Sen. Hillary Clinton, Democrat debate, 28 June
“[The decision to commute Scooter Libby’s prison sentence] is yet another example that this Administration simply considers itself above the law... This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice.” —Sen. Hillary Clinton, 2 July press release

I think a very general review of most lines of reasoning in liberal thought (using the term loosely) will shed a similar light on the hypocrisy of Carpetbagger Clinton and her vast left-wing consortium of friends.

The logic of the liberal left

“In order to get beyond race, you have to go to race. To suggest race neutrality as a remedy for racial discrimination is sophistry of the highest order.” —NAACP Chairman Julian Bond responding to a recent Supreme Court decision

Nothing like a good old case of two wrongs making a right. I've never understood how people argue that discrimination based on race is the best way to end discrimination based on race. It just doesn't make sense.

I get that there are those who argue that because of slavery blacks have been dealt an unequal hand that continues to affect all of that race today (if you couldn't tell, I'm not black). However, if it was wrong to discriminate against a black person, how does it then make it right to discriminate against a white person? Where is the logic in that line of thinking?

“[I]n the post-civil-rights era, two competing ideas about discrimination, particularly racial discrimination, have arisen. The ‘conservative’ view is that discrimination is wrong, period. The ‘liberal’ view is that discriminatory means are acceptable in pursuing a noble end.” —James Taranto

The trouble is, who determines what the noble end should be. Further, who determines whether racism is bringing about that noble end? Whenever we determine that race will be a factor in how we rate a person's state in life, racism abounds.