Healthy Debate Doesn't Involve Threat Of Guns (Dionne barf alert!!!)

IBD Editorials ^ | August 19, 2009 | E. J, DIONNE JR. The lunatic

[Kaslin]

Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush?

How would our friends on the right have reacted to someone at a Reagan or a Bush speech carrying a sign that read:

"It's time to water the tree of liberty"?

That would be a reference to Thomas Jefferson's declaration that the tree "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Pardon me, but I don't think conservatives would have spoken out in defense of the right of every American Marxist to bear arms or to shed the blood of tyrants.

In fact, the Bush folks didn't like any dissent at all. Recall the 2004 incident in which a distraught mother whose son was killed in Iraq was arrested for protesting at a rally in New Jersey for first lady Laura Bush. The detained woman wasn't even armed. Maybe if she had been, the gun lobby would have defended her.

The Obama White House purports to be open to the idea of guns outside the president's appearances. "There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally," Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said on Tuesday. "Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality."

Gibbs made you think of the old line about the liberal who is so open-minded he can't even take his own side in an argument.

What needs to be addressed is not the legal question, but the message that the gun-toters are sending.

[mort56]

Oh for goodness sake, E.J. Man up you frightened little twerp.

[Kaslin]

Could be

[Kaslin]

It was not at a convention, but it was at a voting poll in Philidelphia

"Security" patrols stationed at polling places in Philly

[Kaslin]

Actually, the real conservative response would be "I disagree with their politics, but as citizens, they have every right to keep and bear arms", as long as they do so lawfully.

Bump

[FrogMom]

Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists...

That's all the further I read.

Let me get this straight, if possible. One day the loud people are Brooks Brothers clad, then next they are scruffy (assuming he's attempting to have us substitute rightists for leftists).

I'm so confused, they are going to make my head explode.

[KarinG1]

Is this moron trying to convince me I wouldn’t defend the right of a citizen to keep and bear arms merely because his ideology differs from my own? Give me a break. It is the progs who think the bill of rights only applies to them, not conservatives.

[Neil E. Wright]

self ping to reply to this rooster-sucking communist later.

[Elsie]

What needs to be addressed is not the legal question, but the message that the gun-toters are sending.

INDEED!!

---

(And just what IS that 'message'?)

---

 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[ctdonath2]

How does the author think laws are enforced?

[MrB]

Hey, EJ, you moron!

How do you think the government intends to coerce everyone to comply with its policies?

GUNS, you idiot!

[bmwcyle]

I have been threatened by a Union member at Norristown High School, PA protesting Clinton. If I can carry with my CCW in a state, you can bet I am armed.