Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Hurricanes and the 2nd Amendment

States in the gulf coast have begun a campaign urging self-reliance and preparation to defend themselves against another season of nature's windy onslaught. The citizentry have been told to rely upon themselves and their stockpiled provisions if they do not evacuate the area when they are warned that a storm is coming. Aside from citizens who are immobile for health and age reasons, all able-bodied citizens have been in a sense told that they are left to their own in the event of an emergency.

While the state governments of many states realize they can't come to your personal aid in the event of an emergency, these same states still restrict an able-bodied, and law abiding citizen from keeping a firearm in their homes.

I think once the government has admitted that protecting individual life and property is not the priority of government in any emergency, they've lost the argument to keep you from owning what the 2nd amendment guarantees as a right.

To our politicians this is what the 2nd Amendment means:

To Republicans: The 2nd Amendment guarantees your right to own certain arms, in certain states unless those weapons look military in nature. Even if they are less powerful and useful than say a hunting rifle they'd like to stay on the safe side because a military-looking weapon (even in the hands of a law abiding citizen) is just too much temptation to shoot up an elementary school playground.

To Democrats: The 2nd Amendment guarantees your right to play army one weekend a month and help border patrol agents give water to Mexicans crossing the Arizona desert.

5 comments:

Esther said...

No kidding. I agree.

Anonymous said...

Now we see your true Libertarian colors shining in the glare of your Coleman lantern as you peer out of your sandbagged bunker somewhere in the Idaho panhandle.

Put down the gun and listen.

So the government shouldn't help the people whom it represents in an emergency, huh? Interesting viewpoint.

Maybe the FDAA, FEMA's predecessor, should have kept their meddling to themselves instead of helping with the '64 Alaska earthquake, hurricanes in '62, '65, '69 and '72, and the San Fernando earthquake in '71.

There are lots of people who might disagree with that, including the hundreds or thousands that might have died or lost even more without Federal assistance.

What if FDR said, "screw you, you're on your own," during the height of the depression? Perhaps he shouldn't have mobilized the government into providing jobs, food and shelter for the teeming masses of poor and disposessed.

Perhaps LBJ should have let old people just die instead of creating Medicare.

I could go on all day, but you know as much as I do on what the government has done, good and bad, in the last 200+ years. Just because FEMA is broken is no reason to disband them and let everyone paddle for themselves in the next flood. It's a good reason to fix FEMA.

How about this crazy concept. We elect representatives to operate the vast machine that is America. We the people are in fact, the government. And when a part of that machine is broken, all of us pitch in and help...in the form of our collective center of power, the government.

If Libertarians were in charge the entire country would resemble the movie, Escape from New York. Snake Pliskin (Kurt Russell) is a Libertarian, you know.

Tracy said...

HA HA HA

I didn't say the government shouldn't help people in an emergency, I'm telling you that they don't and they admit everyday that they don't.

Let me give you a scenario that happened a few years ago:

A man who was held up in a store with a weapon had cut off his discussion with police and the police took action to take the guy out. After the dust had cleared two dead bodies were laying in the store. One was the target gunmen, another was a bystander who they didn't know was in the store.

The family of the by-stander sued the police department for wrongful death. Even though it was proven that the police had broken some of their own policies and understandably didn't handle the situation perfectly the court ruled that the role of a police force was to restore order to society and not necessarily to protect life and property. Your argument is with our own government, not with me. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, I'm telling you that they don't and the gulf states confirmed what has already been established.

Before medicare and overregulation doctors used to make house calls. Before the department of education the US had world class education.

Your solution is to pitch in and throw more turds on the turdpile. The irony is that half-wits call that 'progressive' thinking.

As Milton Friedman said (another libertarian though not in the movie Escape from New York)

"There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program."

You New Dealers are becoming like the movie Ice Age. Creatures without a new idea in their head and on the edge of their demise...all while obsessing about global warming.

Anonymous said...

You're telling me the government doesn't help the people and I just cited numerous cases where they did.

You could even say they tried to help after Katrina. Too bad they failed because Bush staffed FEMA with a bunch of political hacks with no practical experience in managing disasters, and then refused to acknowledge their warnings when they actually tried to do their job.

My solution isn't to throw turds on the turdpile. My solution is to fix the turdpile. Start by throwing out the turds in '06 and '08, for example. We need fresh, progressive turds in office.

Libertarians like to say the New Deal is dead and buried, but they say that because they have nothing to put on the table. The New Deal worked in its time. It was progressive thinking. I'm certain that Hillary Clinton won't be pushing for legions of jobless people being put to work building dams. That's the New Deal in Iraq, so I guess it's the Republicans that are in the ice age.

Libertarians are all about state's rights. I'm confused. Don't you live in Washington? How could you possibly prefer state government over the Federal? I know you hate Gov. Gregoire...are you pining for the return of Gary Locke?

Okay, you got me there. Locke was more competent than Bush and his wife is hotter.

I'm not sure what your example of the police shooting an innocent bystander has to do with whether the government helps people or not. I think the moral to the story is stay out of the way of the police and duck when they start shooting.

Really, your argument goes in circles until I have to step off and puke. Where's your solution, 2nd amendment boy?

So far it seems to be stockpile firearms because the end is near.

By the way, since you don't buy into global warming, I've got some great land near the equator to sell you. Personally, I'm thinking of buying land in Wyoming. It will be beachfront when the ice caps melt.

Esther said...

Mr. Grump: The New Deal actually ended up causing unemployment rates to go up. It didn't really help anyone. You might want to find a better "several examples."