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December 24, 2012
Mark Steyn on Newtown and Calls for Gun BansHello! And Merry Christmas' Eve! You've probably read this but I'm behind on everything and besides I've wanted to write about a point made in it. Since the humiliations of November, the Right no longer has any hot brands, so this time round the biens pensants have fallen back on "gun culture." Dimwit hacks bandy terms like "assault weapon," "assault rifle," "semi-automatic" and "automatic weapon" in endlessly interchangeable but ever more terrifying accumulations of high-tech state-of-the-art killing power. As the comedian Andy Borowitz tweeted, "When the 2nd Amendment was written the most lethal gun available was the musket." On this last point, something occurred to me. It's obvious, I guess, but worth noting anyway. As the State creates more prohibitions and steals more freedoms, it experiences an unavoidable problem: Those who administer or at least vigorously support the Prohibitive State discover that the laws they wish to inflict on others are uncomfortable straitjackets on themselves. For example, this statement by Joyce Carol Oates. I take it as a given that Ms. Oates would strongly urge the State to investigate, harass, and imprison anyone on the detestable right making a similar statement about who on the left should be killed by gun violence. And yet, as Steyn notes, we all understand -- even those of us who oppose the socialist project -- that Ms. Oates is to be excepted from the sort of controlling regime she favors. Rosie O'Donnell's bodyguards can carry handguns, for example. She's Important; it is therefore Important that her life should be protected, by use of a gun's deadly force, should it come to that. The number of celebrities and powerful people who have either paid armed guards or who have a gun themselves (gotta protect yourself from a stalker) is fairly large. Which brings me to my point: As the State increases in its ambition to Decide for us, those at the top of the control structure naturally look to excuse themselves from the blessings of Government Surveillance and Prohibition they would so generously grant to us all. And more and more what should be a liberal governance (old meaning of liberal) becomes a decidedly illiberal one, one in which Actions are not paramount, but Status. Rosie O'Donnell can agitate for all the gun bans she likes -- she knows she'll never actually have to live under them. Her Status will make an exception for her. It is the lesser citizens of the lower castes to whom these laws will apply. And Joyce Carol Oates? Well, a no-account Tea Partier who incited violence should surely be locked up for breaking some law or another (as the Egyptian filmmaker was). But Joyce Carol Oates has High Status in the regime -- those who administer the State are friends with people who are friends with Oates -- and so she will be excused from such persecutions. A liberal governance -- again, I mean it in the old way -- takes each man as equal and judges his actions only. But a government determined to make decisions for everyone and criminalize anything that it doesn't actually mandate must begin making these determinations based on Status, because it's the people with Status who have the ear of officials or friends in the media. And so we start finding ourselves becoming more like the Soviets we thought we defeated, with classes afforded greater or lesser privileges depending on how close they might be to Government Power. | Recent Comments
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New Study: Freud Was All Wet
And Other Psychological GAINZZZ Update: When Bob Menendez' Aide Wanted to Meet With Vice President Biden, Who Do You Think He Emailed to Arrange The Sit-Down? Agents Say That the Feds Deliberately Tanked Any Investigation Into Biden's 2020 Campaign Bob Menendez and His Wife Indicted on Corruption Charges Pool Report Embarrasses Biden By Reporting What He Really Said Project Veritas Suspends Operations Amid Funding Collapse, Following the Sudden Firing of the Founder/Talent of the Group, James O'Keefe THE MORNING RANT: Healthcare Executives, Traveling Nurses, and RNs who won’t work for “the wage they deserve” Mid-Morning Art Thread The Morning Report — 9/22/23 Daily Tech News 22 September 2023 Search
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