Cynical Nation

After the Heller decision was handed down, I wondered whether and to what extent it would affect the ACLU's nonsensical position on the Second Amendment.

Well, there's some news on that score. First, the good. The Nevada branch of the ACLU has openly embraced the second amendment as a constitutional right for private citizens. Here's hoping other local branches will follow suit.

Because at the national level? The organization's official stance has gone from the merely embarrassing to the howlingly idiotic and jaw-droppingly hypocritical.

The ACLU interprets the Second Amendment as a collective right. Therefore, we disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller.

Then they go on about how Heller didn't specify precisely how much regulation was permissible, so they're just staying out of it. Amazing, isn't it? We're still arguing over the precise limits of freedom of speech and search and seizure (and likely always will) so by the same logic, the ACLU should remain neutral on 1st and 4th amendment cases until all that ugliness gets sorted out, right?

I've been an ACLU member for some time now, and I've always had to accept that the organization had a political bias that I didn't always agree with. I sucked it up, however, because I felt the work they did was important. But this? This is just a goddam shame and disgrace.

My membership is up for renewal, so I think I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to send my membership dues (and maybe a little extra) to the Nevada chapter. I'll also send a letter to the national chapter explaining precisely why I won't be renewing this year.

It may be a while before they get around to reading my letter, though. I was gratified to see that plenty of others were already giving the ACLU hell for this in the comments section of their own blog. The commentary was fierce and damned near unanimous. Here's a sampling.

So pretty much, your policy went from “we agree with the decision in US v Miller that gun ownership is not a constitutional right” to “we disagree with DC V Heller and still believe that gun ownership is not a constitutional right”, meaning that despite whatever ruling is laid down, the ACLU will be against the individual right of private gun ownership....

Well, now it’s confirmed, you are nothing more that a bunch of left wing hacks who could give a flying fuck about the Bill of Rights.

Q: How does an ACLU lawyer count to 10?
A: 1, 3, 4, 5 . . .

The ACLU’s position was wrong before Heller; to maintain it now is absurd. Not one of the justices in Heller endorsed the “collective rights” viewpoint. If the ACLU believes that it is the best public policy that individuals should not own guns, it should campaign for the removal of the 2nd Amendment from the Constitution. By instead arguing for a ridiculously narrow judicial interpretation of that amendment, it is undermining its argument for a broad reading of the rest of the Bill of Rights it so treasures.

I don’t know why this the only consitutional right the ACLU doesn’t defend. The Bill of Rights protects the rights of INDIVIDUALS, so the idea that the Bill of Rights protects a “collective right” is absolutely preposterous. The ACLU needs to change its position on the Second Amendment from the politically correct orthodox liberal position to the truly civil libertarian position. We cannot pick and choose which rights are worthy of more protection than others.

If the ACLU wants to maintain its credibility as the defender of the bill of rights then it must endorse the 2nd amendment as an individual right, and not maintain its pathetic stance claiming it disagrees with the SCOTUS. The fat lady has sung. Get with the program.

I just took the money I had slated to re-up my lapsed ACLU membership and used it to re-up my NRA membership.

Sorry ACLU you lost me.

ACLU,

You’ve lost another American here. I will never donate a cent to your organization of crazy, intolerant lefties.... Your arguments are incredibly lame.

The ACLU is full of fail, this shows it.

What the real name of this organization is, American Civil Liberties that we support Union.

What a joke.

My post was not vulgar, did not violate any of the rules of this site, and was still deleted.

I guess you worthless people have given up on the first amendment as well.

I’ll briefly re-state what I said in my first post: I am a Liberal as well as a gun owner, and I will no longer support you.

And there's much, much more. As of right now, there are just under a thousand such comments, all more or less the same. The fact that the ACLU (LOL!) is apparently deleting many of them just makes them look even more foolish than their brain-dead, inconsistent and indefensible reaction to Heller.

If this tidal wave of blowback is any indication, I wonder whether they'll eventually be forced to reconsider? I hope so. In the meantime, my money's going to Nevada... and the NRA.

Posted by BNJ at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (18) |Discuss

During a recent phone call with my mom, she was talking about something or other that Oprah Winfrey had said on TV or radio that had got her somewhat agitated. She started going on about it, perhaps trying to agitate me as well. I interrupted and patiently explained that I don't give a damn what Oprah thinks or says about anything.

That's kinda how I feel about this story too. Seriously, why is this big news? It certainly won't damage the Obama campaign (if anything it'll help.) I suppose it could be theoretically damaging to Jackson himself, but really, c'mon. As I've said previously, the man is an ignoramus -- a complete and utter ass whose fifteen minutes mercifully expired decades ago. So while I did get a chuckle at the mental image of Jesse "ripping Obama's nuts out," is it really news what Jesse Jackson says or thinks about anybody?

Posted by BNJ at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) |Discuss

First let me be clear about something. I have every intention of voting for John McCain in November, barring some earth-shaking change in the interim. I've always liked McCain, and I think his nomination by the GOP was a positive development for the party that should be rewarded.

But that being said, I'm really becoming much fonder of Obama than I was back during the primary season. Maybe I'm just a sucker, but I think he's earned it. I mean, we all knew he'd run back to the center once he clinched the nomination, but his definition of "center" seems to be far more encouraging than I would have ever thought.

I always expected some Sister Souljah moment in which he'd toss said Sister under the proverbial bus. I didn't expect that he'd populate and entire city block full of Sister Souljahs, climb behind the wheel of the bus himself, and then proceed to mow them all down like tenpins, systematically backing the bus up to make sure he'd been thorough enough.

And yet that's what we have. Just during the past couple of weeks we've seen him triangulate on NAFTA, FISA, public campaign financing, the Second Amendment, the death penalty, MoveOn.org, faith-based programs, and I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. It's no wonder that the Wall Street Journal suggests that it's he, rather than McCain, who's running for "Bush's Third Term."

Needless to say, this all makes me very happy. It's not that I really want a third Bush term (God forbid) but I do welcome the flurry of unmistakable signals that Obama will not be beholden to the nutroots left. I actually disagree with Obama on several of these reversals, but nonetheless view them as welcome developments to the extent they shatter the image of Obama as rigid ideologue.

Don't get me wrong. I don't doubt for a minute that's he's far more liberal than I am by instinct and by nature, but he's also proven to be politically savvy enough to understand why Bill Clinton has been the only Democratic president since FDR to be elected twice. When progressive ideology and cynical political calculus cross paths in an Obama administration, can there be any serious doubt as to which will win?

Obama knows that the left may whine and bitch when he disappoints him, but that they will continue to stand by him regardless, just as they stood by Bill Clinton when he was dismantling welfare, signing NAFTA, and cutting the capital gains tax. For this reason, he knows he has more to fear from the right and center than from the left. Hell, maybe only Nixon could go to China. And maybe an Obama presidency could work out okay after all.

The truth is, the big thing that really bothered me about an Obama presidency was his economic policy. If we take him at his word, he wants to increase (drastically in some cases) pretty much every federal tax that exists. But at this point, one has to wonder how committed he is to any of his campaign pledges. Perhaps those tax plans were only tossed in there to make his (equally unlikely) proposed spending programs sound somewhat less budgetarily farfetched. How long before he jettisons all of them? His economics team, after all, seems remarkably pragmatic and centrist.

I don't pretend to know the real answers here. But I did have a dream last night, in which my subconscious told me its own predictions. I dreamed I met Obama at some big public function or another. I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him aside and asked him which of his myriad tax hike proposals he actually planned on implementing. He was more forthcoming than I expected, and whispered to me that he would only raise the capital gains tax (including dividends), and only on those earning a very high income.

I asked him if he could at least consider cutting the corporate tax rate in return, as even Charles Rangel wants to do, but I woke up before I could get an answer.

Posted by BNJ at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (44) |Discuss