A Threat to One Right is a Threat to All Rights

Western Hero ^ | 26 July 2010 | silverfiddle

[Silverfiddle]

I got into an argument with an old friend and fellow lifetime NRA member over that organization’s support for campaign finance legislation that restricts free speech in exchange for an exemption for itself.

Good on the NRA for defending our Second Amendment rights. Bad on them for squashing the First Amendment in the process.

Things really got heated when I excoriated our NRA for toying with the idea of endorsing Harry Reid. Reid Voted for the Brady Bill, Erik Erikson reminds us.  Politico explains how politics in America makes such bedfellows possible:

First, Reid has a fairly favorable lifetime rating from the NRA. And then there’s the $61 million for the Clark County Shooting Park, earmarked by Reid, which led Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, to call Reid “a true champion” of the Second Amendment at an event commemorating the opening of the 2,900-acre park in April. (Politico)

So Reid bribed the NRA with $61 million of taxpayer money, and they in return call this petty statist "a true champion." Disgusting.

Legislation as a Money-Making Scam
It is bad enough that congress exempts itself from its own laws. Is truly a despotic government that enacts laws threatening our individual liberties in order to sell those rights back to the highest bidder. This is extortion--a sickening theft of our birthright.

Progressive America, Negotiated Rights
 Natural Rights are down the toilet. The Kagan hearings confirmed that. Congress can make us eat our veggies and progressive jurists like Kagan will stand aside because they see nothing wrong. And she will be confirmed in a cakewalk.

If government can make a free man play “mother may I” in order to keep firearms, it can also make a free woman ask permission to exercise her God-given right to free speech. Once we open negotiations on our fundamental rights, we’ve already lost. Government ceases to be the protector of our rights and now becomes the gatekeeper, telling us which rights we may exercise, when and where.

Welcome to Progressive America...

[Venturer]

Agreed.

[Shooter 2.5]

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[Shooter 2.5]

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[Jacquerie]

All should read Hayek’s masterpiece. Chapter XI, “The End of Truth,” is unfolding before our eyes.

Regarding a Threat to One Right being a Threat to All Rights, Aristotle said in circa 350 BC, “The citizens begin by giving up some part of the constitution, and so with greater ease the government changes something else which is a little more important, until they have undermined the whole fabric of the state.”

The various paths a nation can take to its destruction have been mapped quite clearly these past 2,500 years.

[Silverfiddle]

Oh so true... Human nature does not change.

[GYL2]

Welcome to Neo- Progressive America...

[Manly Warrior]

Does your local pro-life org campaign for the 2nd Amendment? Just asking. Do they agree with the 2nd?

Most orgs are single-issue focused, otherwise they would be a....political party, or a person, no?

While the NRAs PR has been less than optimum, they still are the muscle for the 2A. Write the BOD a letter, send an email etc; let them know that we (dues paying memebrship) will not tolerate such foolishness.

The left is very glad NRA types are peeing all over this publicly, rather than calling the NRA leadership to task.