#1
You know, it's fascinating! I read your comments twice and when I finished, seriously wondered whether we read the same article. So, I went back and re-read the Meyer piece slowly, then read your comments once more. And again, I say, "Fascinating!" that two such thoughtful, well-meaning people can read the exact same thing and see it so totally differently. So, I'd like to take each of your criticisms and compare them against what Meyer actually said.
Beginning with abortion and gun control, here are his exact words President Obama has told us time and again that among his criteria for choosing Federal judges will be "empathy." Empathy is a wonderful quality in any human being, but a judge's job is to rule according to the law. Once our courts are presided over by judges who will reach verdicts based on how they feel about an issue--such as abortion or the right of citizens to bear arms--the law will be whatever the judges wish it to be That's all he says. I don't know what you think it means, but I see it as a very real warning. Abortion is legal in America. It's the law of the land. But if judges make rulings based on empathy (for the unborn), they may countermand & bypass the rule of law, thus being Law Unto Themselves.
The same is true of gun control. Our Constitution guarantees us the right to bear arms. Whether you like that or hate it, it's still your right as a citizen to choose. If enough citizens believe those words are misinterpreted or that guns are too dangerous to be kept in our own hands, then there are legal, constitutional methods of amending that particular article. But the power remains in our hands thru our elected representatives--not via judicial fiat! Any judge who rules (in the name of gun control) to disarm the citizenry of this nation will be breaking the law and violating our Constitution. They will also be setting themselves above the law & apart from the People. I see this line of judicial activism as the fast-track to dictatorship (and FUCK empathy!), but it is definitely anti-Democratic and unconstitutional.
As for the author's "implicitly defending corporate bonuses while people like me are getting screwed," I am one of those people, and so is my husband. We're frightened to death. We're worried sick about money, savings, rationed 'healthcare', his little pension, my little annuity, the MORTGAGE on our house, the future and what will be done to us. But I do not see anything the author has written as "implicitly" defending corporate bonuses, and I sincerely believe that in terms of this article your admitted "hostility," though justified, is misplaced. But just what exactly did he say? The government now owns General Motors Corp., is reaching for control of insurance companies, and has launched plans to take over our country's healthcare industry. It even wants authority to set the salaries of executives in industries that, at least for now, aren't being subsidized or underwritten by the government. I suggest this is about the government usurping more and more power over all our lives and not about "defending corporate bonuses" which were never mentioned.
If the government should obtain the authority to dictate the salaries of executives in industries that have NOT been government-subsidized or underwritten, then what is next? That would be an enormous coup over all our lives (and salaries). Why not? If you can do one, you may then continue on. That is what I got out of this extract: steady government takeover into dictatorship. And that is what should earn your hostility.
Regarding "the veiled threat at the end: Return the government to the Republicans or the gun nuts will take it by force", Carlos, I cannot imagine how you could possibly derive that conclusion from the author's words. First let us look at what he actually has to say about Republicans. This revolution won't be stopped, and our country won't be rescued, by the Republicans in Washington....because most of them are careerist hacks who've been playing footsie with the Democrats for too long; with very few exceptions they lack the intellectual firepower to articulate the present danger, and the political courage to stand up to this Administration and really fight. We have lost our free-market economy as quickly as we have lost the rule of law. Money is to an economy what blood is to a body; life and death resides within the organ that controls its flow. The government already owns our country's leading banks, which means the government controls our economy (And in all fairness to President Obama, it was the Bush administration that started us down this ghastly road.) That Meyer informs us, "sales of guns and ammunition are rising sharply." is hardly a "veiled threat" to return Republicans to power, but rather a hard statement of fact. To view it in any other way will not change reality no matter how much we may wish to evade it.
Re: "Frankly I was too turned off to care." That is because you believe this to be nothing but an article about "gun nuts" rather than a piece about all of us--rural, gentrified, rich, poor, middle, left & right--and our laws and Constitution under attack by a rogue party that was once Democratic but is turning totalitarian. If you cannot care, you should at least be aware that we ARE under attack, Carlos, and they mean to take us over, permanently--ALL of us. It was only after the Nazis secured their grip on power in Germany, and only after the Bolsheviks had seized control of Russia, that they set out to disarm and destroy vast numbers of ordinary citizens who--to the astonishment and fury of the revolutionaries--just wouldn't go along. "That's when the real shooting started, and when blood began flowing in the streets."
My grandparents were among those ordinary citizens who just wouldn't go along with Bolshevik tyranny. They managed somehow (miraculously) to escape to Canada, but all their relatives (my relatives) did not manage. For they were neither lucky nor daring nor "gun nuts." They were utter victims of first Bolshevik, then Nazi genocide. But if they had been armed, perhaps some might have survived. More could have resisted.
At present, you don't have to be gun crazy to resist tyranny in this country, but it helps to recognize tyranny, whether from the Left or the Right, when it confronts you. Our liberties, our rule of law and our Constitution are coming under attack. This is a real, honest to God threat to our nation as we know it--and as the Founders established it--despite your ennui. |
