Thanks for Admitting It, Dr. Dean

I was flipping channels this afternoon and came across Howard Dean on CSPAN at some Democrat function or other. I haven't been able to find a clip or a transcript of it online, but it was a tape-delay of something from this morning. This is my best recollection of the question and answer, but when or if I find the clip or transcript, I'll put it down verbatim.

Dean was asked about how the Catholic Church had acted during the last election, essentially telling practicing Catholics that it would be a sin to vote for (pro-abortion) Kerry. He was asked what, if anything, could the Democrats do to overcome this opposition.

Dean's response was quite illuminating. First, he said that he thought the Catholic Church was somewhat divided, because he himself had received encouragement and endorsement from a group of nuns. However, he believed that the Democrat Party could reach out to Americans of all faiths, especially Catholics, because (as nearly as I can remember the exact wording):

We have a common social agenda. After all, it is said that a camel can pass through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man can enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Like I've said for a while - Leftism is a religion. Instead of supplication to the authority of the Church, you're supposed to supplicate yourself to the authority of the Party. And from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Let no one rise above anyone else. Equality of misery, not opportunity.

There's a campaign slogan for the next go-around.

UPDATE 2/14: Here's the full quote from the Palm Beach Post:

"We have to remind Catholic Americans that the social mission of the Democratic Party is almost exactly the social mission of the Catholic Church," Dean said. "The idea that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven is not a plank of the GOP platform. So it seems to me that we have a right to have a claim on Catholic votes based on Catholic teachings."

Essentially what Dean said was "The DNC is just like the Catholic Church (except for that pesky abortion thing) - we believe rich people are sinners."

Or at least rich people who don't belong to our Church.

That would explain their tax policies. And their entitlement policies as well.

It's all Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Fault

Korea has announced that it does have nuclear weapons, and it has withdrawn from multilateral disarmament negotiations.

North Korea announced for the first time through its state-run media that it has nuclear weapons, and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks any time soon, saying it needs the armaments as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

Apparently Kim Jong Il got his first look at last summer's Team America: World Police

North Korea's embassy in Prague has demanded that the film "Team America: World Police" be banned in the Czech Republic, saying the movie harms their country's reputation, a report said Saturday.

I guess the song "I'm So Ronery" hit a little too close to home.

(Sorry about the lack of new posts, but I've been - and remain - really busy.)

UPDATE 2/11: Varifrank is taking this announcement very seriously:

It is my opinion, at 1:00 PST On February 11 2005, The War Clock has been wound up and is now ticking away.

There is still some doubt in my mind on which country it will be that first crosses into North Korea, The US or the Chinese. It is my opinion at this point that this can only go one way. North Korea, more specifically the person of Kim Jong Il will have to be removed.

The "Inherent Pathology" of a Gun Culture

or "Why We Don't Trust Gun Controllers"

I've got a copy of Prof. Saul Cornell's book Whose Right to Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect? (used, via ABE) in the mail, but the next book I'm going to get is Abigail Kohn's Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures. I've been considering getting a copy for a while, but Reason Magazine has a review of the book up in the current edition, and that's sealed the deal for me.

I found this excerpt of that review particularly telling, though:

From "public health" articles proposing gun control as a cure for the "epidemic" of gun violence to highly regarded sociologists who argue that gun research should be informed by "moral principles" rather than hard facts, she confesses her surprise at the ill-informed and often tendentious research conducted by academics. Kohn’s own research for Shooters, some of which appeared in this magazine ("Their Aim Is True," May 2001), elicited predictable responses. One colleague said she was performing a "social service by researching 'such disgusting people.'" Another said that unless Kohn acknowledged the "inherent pathology" of gun enthusiasm, she was disrespecting victims of gun violence.

A quote from the earlier Reason piece by Ms. Kohn:

There was a time when I would not have wanted to touch a gun of any kind, much less spend part of an afternoon riding the back of a rocking mechanical pony and blazing away at a series of targets with revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. But that improbable picture is the culmination of a journey that took me from the ivory towers of academia to the shooting ranges of Northern California. Bluntly, I was surprised by what I found there. As a practicing anthropologist, I had set out in search of gun crazies, but what I found were regular folks -- enthusiasts who relate to their guns in generally socially positive ways. These people are usually ignored by most media accounts of America’s "gun culture." What follows is the story of how I came to make that discovery, and some brief sketches of the sorts of people who make up America’s much-maligned and misunderstood gun culture. Or, perhaps more accurately, America’s gun cultures.

Nice to know what some of them really think of us while they claim they only want to implement some "common-sense" regulations. And another example of people fearing what they don't understand - and why, if we're going to save our "gun culture" we need to be taking non-shooters out shooting.

(I thought it was Freud who stated that fear of weapons was a sign of mental aberration?)

UPDATE: I'm reminded by Denise of The Ten Ring of an op-ed first pointed to by SayUncle. The University of Conneticut's Daily Campus printed a piece entitled Gun-nuts have no real excuse in their Feb. 1 edition. Money quote:

At first glance, the term "gun nut" would appear to be nothing more than an ad hominem against the more enthusiastic weapon owners of this country. However, as one reads the literature espoused by gun nut organizations, the reasoning behind this term becomes startlingly clear. Gun nuts are called as such because they are incontrovertibly insane.

The "gun enthusiasts are insane" meme is hardly a figment of Reason's imagination, and apparently the author, one Robert Schiering, hangs around a lot of people like OSU Associate Professor Saul Cornell.

Lest You Think Our Collapsing Schools are Simply Due to Leftist Teachers,

Read this interesting article from VFW Magazine's January issue, Political Correctness Pervades History Textbooks. Excerpts:

Using the Cold War as a test case, it's clear that the version of U.S. history taught in high schools today is far from from complimentary to veterans.

--

"It's vitally important that high school textbooks portray the turbulent Cold War period fairly and intelligibly," wrote Ernest W. Lefever, 1970s director of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), "with due regard to America's role in the international arena, and with full recognition of the challenges presented by our chief adversary, the Soviet Union."

So what grade do textbook publishers rate for their treatment of this critical war? Based on past and present analysis, most textbooks flunk. This should be of importance to veterans because their legacy to posterity is at stake. Moreover, taxpayers spend $3.24 billion annually on social studies textbooks and have a right to expect students to be taught accurate information.

In 1978, the EPPC published a landmark study of how the Cold War was presented. Martin F. Herz, the author of How the Cold War is Taught, judged 16 striking foreign policy events in six U.S. history textbooks.

To see if things had changed, I compared treatment of the same events in The American Nation: A History of the United States (10th edition) by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. Published by Pearson Longman in 2000 (new editions of textbooks are released about every four years), it's one of the more commonly used texts.

One thing is evident up front: Americans in uniform played virtually no role in the Cold War, at least in the textbook version of history. Since GIs are absent, we can look only at what importance is attached to key events and how the enemy is portrayed.

--

Of the six textbooks examined while the Cold War was under way, Discovering American History by Allen O. Kownslar and Donald B. Frizzle was the worst. Published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston in 1974, its relevant chapter was called "The Cold War: Interpreting an Era." Of the chapter's 28 pages, fully 43% were devoted to "McCarthyism," the Left's all-encompassing criticism of U.S. actions during the Cold War

Not merely whitewashing communism, this book actually lauds it. In attempting to indoctrinate the reader, it contains the "greatest amount of systematic bias," Herz found. "One can only marvel at the benefit of the doubt accorded the Soviet system," he wrote. According to Discovering American History, "Under Stalin's rule, the Soviet Union took great strides forward."

At every opportunity, it exculpates the Kremlin's actions while ignoring the Soviet conquest of East Europe. Excluding the policy of containment, it literally rewrites history claiming Truman's doctrine called for intervention against "democratic revolutions - anywhere." The Berlin Blockade and Wall are virtually ignored.

--

Fast-forward 26 years to 2000--almost a decade after the Soviet Union collapsed--when The American Nation was published. This textbook is riddled with statements critical of U.S. policies, while exonerating Communist actions.

Communism itself is neither explained nor its horrific consequences detailed by the authors. A student could only conclude that the United States was waging a conflict against an imaginary, phantom foe posing no real threat to the West.

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and his regime get nearly a complete pass. "Much depends on one's view of the postwar Soviet system," say the authors, as if a high school student had an opportunity to formulate an informed opinion on the subject. An entire column is devoted to complimentary comments about communism and Stalin.

The few negative statements about Stalin are mitigated by extenuating circumstances. Aggressive Soviet behavior is rationalized by claiming "Moscow was seeking only to protect itself against the possibility of another invasion." Just who would have mounted such an invasion is never explained. In essentially making the case for Stalin, the authors defend the Kremlin's so-called "legitimate interests" in East Europe.

It is mentioned only in parenthetical notes that Stalin, one of history's most brutal mass murderers, "ruthlessly executed hundreds of his former comrades." In fact, he was responsible for the deaths of 20 million people. Students are told that 5,000 Polish officers were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia during World War II, "presumably by the Soviet secret police." It has been known conclusively for 50 years that Stalin personally ordered the execution of 20,000 prominent Poles there.

Read the whole thing.

Do you read the textbooks your kids bring home? Are you aware that the majority of the teachers teaching from these texts are as ignorant as your children - having been taught from similar textbooks by similarly ignorant teachers?

I'm going to quote Connie du Toit one more time, as her statement is still the most valid one I've seen in print:

The other day our Carpenter’s helper heard me say something along the lines of, "it is difficult to conclude that incompetence is the reason why our public schools have deteriorated. There comes a point where you have to suspect sabotage, or a conspiracy."

He asked me if I really meant that. I gave him the five minute explanation of John Dewey’s known affiliation with communists, his frequent essays and articles about the wonders of the Soviet education system, and his quote, "You can’t make Socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent."

I then went on to tell him about how public schools changed at the turn of the last century. That there were others involved in turning Americans from free-thinking individualists to factory drones. I also added that many people probably went along with it because it seemed like a good idea, but there were certainly enough people behind the scenes, who knew that the goal posts had been moved. THAT is a conspiracy.

Yes. There does come that time when you are forced to don the tinfoil hat.
The incompetence excuse only works once. Incompetence this great is impossible to attribute to accident.

If you need an explanation for the mind-numbed, brainwashed, screeching International ANSWER / Moveon.org / DemocraticUnderground crowd, this is it. They're the victims of decades of this kind of indoctrination.

Department of Our Collapsing Collapsed Schools, Sunday Edition

Give a little read of this wonderful little op-ed, written by "a history teacher and political satirist in Sacramento, California", Mr. Mark W. Bradley. Note that it is published not on a U.S. site, but instead a New Zealand one. Here are some excerpts:

It's not as if I set out to lie to my students, mind you. It's just that the implications of our current Constitutional horror show are so frightening and abhorrent that I feel compelled to address them with trepidation, if at all.

How, for instance, am I to explain the single-minded dedication of King George the Usurper and his morally retarded courtiers to the proposition that all men (certainly not women) are created equal, but that the rich and powerful are more equal than the rest of us, and the voracious corporate leviathans that gobble us up like guppies are the most equal of all??

--

And how, pray tell, can I hope to illuminate for their parents the unpleasant truth that when it comes to "No Child Left Behind," the Arrogant Airhead of Crawford is leading us along a path of deception first trod by the malevolent Pied Piper of Hamlin?

--

As for those of us educators who wish to hold onto our careers well into the impending Age of Benightedness, prudence may well dictate a new modus operandi. Perhaps it would behoove us to bring our curriculum into closer alignment with whatever message is currently being beamed at the president "from beyond the stars." Aside from our integrity (a commodity of decidedly declining value in today's market), what have we got to lose?

Come to think of it, why shouldn't we let God back into the classroom? I mean, it's not as if all those nasty French ideas about "social contracts" and "rational thought" ever really caught on here in America anyway, so what's the big deal? If we cranky old Liberals would just stop all the grousing, quit fighting the inevitable, and get with the program, maybe we could all lock arms and march boldly forward into the brave new classroom of the future.

Satire? Hardly. I think Mr. Bradley means every single word of it.

And remember, people of Sacramento: He teaches your children history.

A Sterling Example of "Common Sense Gun Laws" in Action

Bruce at mASS BACKWARDS has the entire infuriating story.

The "People's Democratic Republic" of Massachussetts strikes again.

You've GOT to Read This

Mostly Cajun has a link to an Arab News op-ed that everybody needs to read.

Go on, I'll still be here when you get back.

Professor Saul Cornell Responds, and So Do I

Here is his reply to my earlier piece, complete and unedited:

Thanks for the e-mail.

Here is my quick response to the points raised on the blog. Scholarship and the Courts for the entire 20th century adopted the collective rights theory. The Senate Committee reflects the political clout of the gun rights movement, not the state of the law or scholarship in 1982. Quoting dicta from the most infamous case in American history is hardly a strong case for an individual rights consensus in the 19th century. The fact that Tribe changed his mind before the most recent scholarship debunking the standard model appeared does not tell us much. Tribe is hardly an expert on early American history. The dissent in the 9th Circuit was not the majority view, and Kozinski is a bit odd to say the least. I have never denied the existence of an individual rights tradition, but I think the evidence strongly suggests that it was weak at the Founding, got stronger over the 19th century, but never supplanted the two alternative models-- the collective rights view, and what I call the civic rights view. Of course, since I am not an originalist none of this really matters. Moreover, with 240 million guns in America and without an individual right written into the 2nd Amendment why all the fuss. I believe the issue is very interesting, but at the end of the day it really hardly matters in terms of the politics and public policy debate. Guns are part of the fabric of American culture and are not going away so the question is can we take a few common sense steps to reduce gun violence or not. The slippery slope arguments have it backwards. What we have is an upward struggle to achieve modest regulations.

Hope this helps

Saul Cornell
Director, Second Amendment Research Center, John Glenn Institute
Associate Professor Of History
Fellow Law, Policy, and Social Science
Moritz College of Law

Oh, indeed, it helps.

I'm glad that you admit up front that you are not an originalist. It is obvious from your writing, but stating it explicitly is certainly helpful. For those unfamiliar with the term, an "originalist" is one who believes that the Constitution is not a "living document," and that interpretation of it should be based on the original understanding of the text as it was proposed and ratified. Justice Antonin Scalia is an originalist, for instance. Therefore if the Constitution is found to be outdated in any of its parts, it should be altered by amendment, rather than by mere legislation or judicial interpretation. In other words, even if the legislature should pass a law that appears to be a good idea, but is in violation of the Constitution as originally understood by those who ratified it, it should be the duty of the Judiciary to strike such law down as unconstitutional until such time as the Constitution has been amended to correct the error. Further, the power of the Judiciary is restricted to striking down unconstitutional law, and not creating law. That power is left to the legislative and executive branches.

There's good reason for this. The Constitution is a mechanism designed to restrict and constrain the power of the federal government. The tripartite system is engineered to ensure that expansion of power of any one branch can be checked by the power of either other branch, and that even two branches together can be restrained by the remaining one. The Founders knew the dangers of democratic forms of government, and did their best to build a corruption-resistant, but robust and functional structure. However, we humans are persistent creatures, and given time, even the best structures can be destroyed. And we've had lots of time.

You are not quite correct in your statement that "Scholarship and the Courts for the entire 20th century adopted the collective rights theory" as the Committee of the Judiciary report indicates, since it was published in 1982. Sanford Levinson's Yale Law paper The Embarrassing Second Amendment was published in 1989. The gun control scholarship was crumbling towards the end of the century. The U.S. v Emerson decision was published on October 16, 2001.

You pooh-pooh the Senate report as "reflect(ing) the clout of the gun rights movement," but I would suggest that the nearly 120 years of gun control prior to that report reflected the clout of a combination of racism, growing statism, and the exploitation of what Stalin termed "useful idiots." The gun rights movement was growing during that period precisely because of the infringements resulting from this triumvirate.

It is good that you apparently acknowledge, however, that prior to the 20^th century, neither scholarship nor the courts held any such belief strongly, because it is there that your rejection of originalism becomes a prerequisite for accomplishing your current goals without actually having to attempt the "slow and uncertain process of amending the Constitution."

I've never understoond the rejection of originalism in the pursuit of a single-minded goal. Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School's Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law is quoted as saying:

Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard, don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

Professor Levinson, in The Embarrassing Second Amendment wrote:

(I)f one does accept the plausibility of any of the arguments on behalf of a strong reading of the Second Amendment, but, nevertheless, rejects them in the name of social prudence and the present-day consequences produced by finicky adherence to earlier understandings, why do we not apply such consequentialist criteria to each and every part of the Bill of Rights? As Ronald Dworkin has argued, what it means to take rights seriously is that one will honor them even when there is significant social cost in doing so. If protecting freedom of speech, the rights of criminal defendants, or any other part of the Bill of Rights were always (or even most of the time) clearly costless to the society as a whole, it would truly be impossible to understand why they would be as controversial as they are. The very fact that there are often significant costs--criminals going free, oppressed groups having to hear viciously racist speech and so on--helps to account for the observed fact that those who view themselves as defenders of the Bill of Rights are generally antagonistic to prudential arguments. Most often, one finds them embracing versions of textual, historical, or doctrinal argument that dismiss as almost crass and vulgar any insistence that times might have changed and made too "expensive" the continued adherence to a given view. "Cost-benefit" analysis, rightly or wrongly, has come to be viewed as a "conservative" weapon to attack liberal rights. Yet one finds that the tables are strikingly turned when the Second Amendment comes into play. Here it is "conservatives" who argue in effect that social costs are irrelevant and "liberals" who argue for a notion of the "living Constitution" and "changed circumstances" that would have the practical consequence of removing any real bite from the Second Amendment.

As Fred Donaldson of Austin, Texas wrote, commenting on those who defended the Supreme Court's decision upholding flag-burning as compelled by a proper (and decidedly non-prudential) understanding of the First Amendment, "[I]t seems inconsistent for [defenders of the decision] to scream so loudly" at the prospect of limiting the protection given expression "while you smile complacently at the Second torn and bleeding. If the Second Amendment is not worth the paper it is written on, what price the First?" The fact that Mr. Donaldson is an ordinary citizen rather than an eminent law professor does not make his question any less pointed or its answer less difficult.

Being an "ordinary citizen" myself, I find myself in strong agreement with him. Another "ordinary citizen," Bill Whittle, wrote in his essay Freedom:

We as a nation suffer an appalling number of handgun-related deaths each year --- perhaps 11,000 of them. The number is not important; each is a personal tragedy and those lives can never be replaced.

If we attempt to reduce this horrible number by banning handguns, we are taking away the property of a person who has broken no laws by a government whose legitimacy is determined by a document that specifically allows that property, namely guns.

Destroy that trust by punishing the innocent, by pulling a plank from the Bill of Rights, and the contract between the government and the people falls apart. Once the Second Amendment goes, the First will soon follow, because if some unelected elite determines that the people can't be trusted with dangerous guns then it's just a matter of time until they decide they can't be trusted with dangerous ideas, either. Dangerous ideas have killed many millions more people than dangerous handguns - listen to the voices from the Gulag, the death camps, and all the blood-soaked killing fields through history.

You may object that you do not wish to ban handguns, that you only pursue "a few common sense steps." Perhaps so. But you also asked, "why all the fuss"? And you said, "I believe the issue is very interesting, but at the end of the day it really hardly matters in terms of the politics and public policy debate."

This is what all the fuss is about, at least from my perspective. Alan Dershowitz sees it. Sanford Levinson sees it. Fred Donaldson, Bill Whittle and I see it. That's what all the fuss is about, and it matters a great deal.

You, an historian, have taken it upon yourself to distort history - something that you yourself claim is unacceptable. You claim that the Justice department's recognition of the "standard model" of the Second Amendment is somehow "well beyond" a "living document" re-interpretation. I'm sorry, Professor, but if you actually believe that you're delusional, and if you know better you're a bald-faced liar. I honestly cannot tell which.

You object that Laurence Tribe is "hardly an expert on American history," yet he doesn't have to be - you gloss right over the fact that he's an acknowledged expert on Constitutional law. You protest that he "changed his mind before the most recent scholarship debunking the standard model appeared." The simple answer to that? ASK HIM. And what scholarship would that be? Michael Bellisiles' thoroughly discredited book Arming America? Or your upcoming book Armed in the Holy Cause of Liberty: Guns and the American Constitution?

You object to my citation of Dred Scott because it's "the most infamous case in American history" - but it was infamous because it denied fundamental enumerated civil rights to blacks, not because Chief Justice Taney didn't know and accurately list what those rights WERE.

You protest that Justice Kozinski is "a bit odd to say the least." Really? Why? Because he's an originalist sitting on the 9^th Circuit? Because when the Supreme Court overturns a 9^th Circuit decision, Kozinski is almost always one of the dissenters to the original decision? Because Kozinski writes clearly and eloquently enough that "ordinary people" can understand him? You object to my citing Justice Kozinski because his opinions are in the minority, but you don't note that in the case I cite he wasn't alone. Justices Pregerson, Gould, Kleinfeld, O'Scannlain and Nelson also dissented. Are they also "a bit odd"? Justice Kleinfeld's slightly drier dissent was joined by Kozinski, O'Scannlain, and Nelson. He said:

I respectfully dissent from our order denying rehearing en banc. In so doing, I am expressing agreement with my colleague Judge Gould’s special concurrence in Nordyke v. King, and with the Fifth Circuit's opinion in United States v. Emerson, both taking the position that the Second Amendment secures an individual, and not collective, right to keep and bear arms.

The panel opinion holds that the Second Amendment “imposes no limitation on California’s [or any other state’s] ability to enact legislation regulating or prohibiting the possession or use of firearms” and “does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms.” The panel opinion erases the Second Amendment from our Constitution as effectively as it can, by holding that no individual even has standing to challenge any law restricting firearm possession or use. This means that an individual cannot even get a case into court to raise the question. The panel's theory is that “the Second Amendment affords only a collective right,” an odd deviation from the individualist philosophy of our Founders. The panel strikes a novel blow in favor of states’ rights, opining that "the amendment was not adopted to afford rights to individuals with respect to private gun ownership or possession,” but was instead “adopted to ensure that effective state militias would be maintained, thus preserving the people’s right to bear arms." It is not clear from the opinion whom the states would sue or what such a suit would claim were they to try to enforce this right. The panel's protection of what it calls the "people's right to bear arms” protects that “right” in the same fictional sense as the “people's” rights are protected in a “people's democratic republic.”

Our circuit law regarding the Second Amendment squarely conflicts with that of the Fifth Circuit. It is inconsistent with decisions of the Supreme Court that have construed the Second Amendment and phrases within it. Our circuit has effectively repealed the Second Amendment without the democratic protection of the amendment process, which Article V requires.

The panel decision purports to undertake historical analysis. Historical context has its uses in understanding the context and purposes of any law, constitutional or legislative, but like legislative history, the use of history is subject to abuse. Where the historical scholarship is partial and tendentious, relying on it becomes like relying on legislative history: “entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one's friends."

Much of the panel decision purports to be an attempt to figure out what the word “militia” means in the Second Amendment. But the panel’s failure to cite the contemporaneous implementing statute defining the term demonstrates the tendentiousness of its analysis. The statute defining the militia, which in substance provides that the “militia” consists of all adult male citizens without regard to whether they are in any state or federal military service, has been subsequently altered to expand its coverage, but the federal militia statute remains in effect. Besides overlooking the statute, the panel somehow failed to notice that the United States Supreme Court, in United States v. Miller, held that the term “militia” in the Second Amendment meant, and means, "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.” We are an inferior court, bound by this holding of the Supreme Court.

The panel opinion swims against a rising tide of legal scholarship to the contrary, relying heavily on a single law review article that claims “keep and bear” means the same thing as "bear," which itself means only to carry arms as part of a military unit."

About twenty percent of the American population, those who live in the Ninth Circuit, have lost one of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. And, the methodology used to take away the right threatens the rest of the Constitution. The most extraordinary step taken by the panel opinion is to read the frequently used Constitutional phrase, "the people," as conferring rights only upon collectives, not individuals. There is no logical boundary to this misreading, so it threatens all the rights the Constitution guarantees to "the people," including those having nothing to do with guns. I cannot imagine the judges on the panel similarly repealing the Fourth Amendment’s protection of the right of "the people" to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, or the right of "the people" to freedom of assembly, but times and personnel change, so that this right and all the other rights of "the people" are jeopardized by planting this weed in our Constitutional garden.

This decision was published on May 6, 2003. Has the scholarship changed that much in less than two years? Has there been another law review article that claims that "keep and bear arms" means only "to carry arms in military service" since then?

Justice Kleinfeld also, like Professors Dershowitz and Levinson, Mr. Donaldson, Mr. Whittle and myself, recognizes that what the 9^th Circuit has done is strip one of the ten amendments from the Bill of Rights by judicial fiat. By "judicial activism." I happen to live in the 9^th Circuit. I don't like being told that I have no individual right to arms when I can read the history, both legal and legislative, and know better.

You protest that the "slippery slope" arguers "have it backwards," that with 280 million guns in America they aren't going to go away. I'm sorry, but we've seen what eighty years of progressive "common sense gun control" has done to England. That is the "slippery slope," and they seem to be gaining significant speed down it.

We've read the literature of the gun control groups. Their entire existence is based on the belief that "the number of guns" in America is responsible for the level of carnage. How else do they expect to reduce that carnage without reducing "the number of guns"? And who can they take those guns from? Only the law-abiding. And how will they accomplish this? The same way it was done in England - by passing incrementally more restrictive, obnoxious, expensive, and irritating laws on acquisition, possession, use, and storage. Then, because none of these laws will result in traceable improvements in gun crime levels, (I refer you to the recent National Academy of Science report on the efficacy of gun control laws in actually, you know, controlling gun violence. Here's a hint - no studies done to date show that any "gun control" laws have been effective in reducing gun violence.) we will be told that "we need to plug the loopholes" and stronger laws are needed. Laws like licensing and registration, and inspection for "safe storage" compliance. Laws, I'll remind you, that criminals will simply ignore or be immune to.

You state that all you want is to "take a few common sense steps to reduce gun violence." Unfortunately, I cannot trust you. You have demonstrated either a willingness to lie, or an ability to delude yourself into believing what is obviously not true. Further, you've demonstrated a willing activism to convince others of your delusion or your lies in the furtherance of your ends. You may pat yourself on the back for your actions because "its all in a good cause," but what you are participating in is the cultivation of that weed in our Constitutional garden, in pulling that plank from the Bill of Rights, with no concern for the result of that. It's alright by you, because you're not an originalist, so "none of this really matters."

But it matters to me and people like me, and that is why there is a "big fuss."

I hope this helps.

UPDATE, 2/7: As of this writing, Professor Cornell has not replied to this piece. Nor do I expect him to, really.

The Perpetually Appalled Have Their Panties in a Twist Again,

over another American who says what he means and means what he says.

Marine general: It's 'fun to shoot people'

Commandant gives counsel, acknowledges wrong word choice
Thursday, February 3, 2005 Posted: 2116 GMT (0516 HKT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A three-star Marine general who said it was "fun to shoot some people" should have chosen his words more carefully, the Marine Corps commandant said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded Marine expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq, made the comments Tuesday during a panel discussion in San Diego, California.

"Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot," Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Mattis' press office has not yet responded to a request to answer questions about his comments.

However, the Marine commandant, Gen. Michael Hagee, defended Mattis, calling him "one of this country's bravest and most experienced military leaders."

"While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war," he said in a written statement. "Lt. Gen. Mattis often speaks with a great deal of candor."

I'll say! And now he'll be crucified for it, I'm sure.

Hagee said he had counseled Mattis regarding the remarks and that Mattis "agrees he should have chosen his words more carefully."

"Throughout our history, Marines have given their lives in the defense of this nation and human rights around the globe," Hagee's statement read. "When necessary, this commitment helps to provide us the fortitude to take the lives of those who oppress others or threaten this nation's security. This is not something we relish, yet we accept it as a reality in our profession of arms."

"Lt. Gen. Mattis is a superb leader and one of the Corps' most courageous and experienced warriors," Hagee wrote. "I remain confident that he will continue to serve this nation with dedication and distinction."

Added Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "The last three times that that general has been in combat, when he was leading Marines in Afghanistan and the two times that he led his division in Iraq, his actions and those of his troops clearly show that he understands the value of proper leadership and the value of human life."

Pace spoke Thursday during a Pentagon briefing. He declined to comment directly on Mattis' comments.

Early in his career, Mattis served as a rifle and weapons platoon commander as a lieutenant and later a captain. He also commanded assault battalions in Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. He was the commander of the 1st Marine Division for the initial attack on Iraq.

San Diego television station KNSD, which calls itself NBC 7/39, captured Mattis' Tuesday comments on video and interviewed a retired military man afterward who said the general's remarks were "flippant."

"I was a little surprised," said retired Vice Adm. Edward H. Martin. "I don't think any of us who have ever fought in wars liked to kill anybody."

Apparently Adm. Martin has never heard the expression "some people just need killin'." Nor is he apparently familiar with Robert E. Lee's famous quote, "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."

Good for Gen. Mattis. I wish him the best in the coming s*!tstorm.

It's Either "Society's" Fault, or the Gun's

Reader Jeff Dege linked to a follow-on story about the slaying of New York actress and playwright Nichole duFresne. It seems the police have apprehended her nineteen year-old killer, and (surprise!) he has a significant record and a violent past.

A violent explosion waiting to happen

Accused murderer Rudy Fleming's troubled past includes guns, gangs, jail, emotional disturbances

Wednesday, February 02, 2005
By MELISSA ANELLI
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

An emotionally troubled teen with gang affiliations and a death wish may have pulled the trigger on his life last week, when he allegedly answered a young actress' comment with a mortal gunshot to her chest.

The senseless shooting may be the end of a downward spiral for Rudy Fleming, 19, who could face life in prison if convicted of murdering Nicole duFresne, an aspiring actress and playwright from Brooklyn.

His descent also may have pulled down Tatianna McDonald, 14, of Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn, said to be his girl friend.

She was arrested yesterday and charged with second-degree murder and robbery in connection with duFresne's death after being taken to the 73rd Precinct stationhouse in Brooklyn by her mother.

At least Ms. McDonald's mother understands the difference between right and wrong and is willing to make her daughter face up to it.

Fleming, who grew up in the West Brighton public housing complex, labeled a member of the Bloods gang by neighbors and police documents, led a young life checkered by crime and violence -- one that couldn't be fixed by the correction system.

That's because the "correction system" isn't. It's warehousing for criminals, and that's about it.

In records of his first arrest, which call Fleming emotionally disturbed, he appears tormented, his only statement after pointing a loaded gun at officers in 2001 being, "You should have shot me. You should have shot me. I want you to kill me. I want to die."

Given his subsequent actions, perhaps they should, but hindsight is always 20/20. However...

He was imprisoned for over two years in connection with the scary incident -- to "ensure that he learns his lesson well," said the prosecuting attorney who asked for the sentence.

Except the "lessons" he learned were probably how to be a better thug, and how, even in prison, the authorities cannot protect inmates from brutalizing each other, nor can they keep drugs out of what are supposed to be secure facilities.

WEST BRIGHTON KID

In 1991, Gertrude Fleming ushered then-6-year-old Rudy, four siblings and a cousin through the doors of a tattered West Brighton housing project building on the 700 block of Henderson Avenue, police sources said.

The high-rises smell of urine and takeout food, and face a church whose door bears this sign: "No Weapons Allowed In Building!!!"

And in "gun-free" NYC, just how much compliance do you think that sign inspires?

The family lived crammed into a second-floor apartment, their door facing a long and dank hallway.

Fleming's mother still lives in the project.

What a sterling example of how well the "War on Poverty" has worked! Just about as well as the "War on (some) Drugs."

When a reporter informed her, two days ago, that her son was in trouble, she reacted casually, as if she had been waiting for such news. But when told the charge was murder, Mrs. Fleming retreated into her apartment.

Yesterday, she remained secluded, only shouting through the blue metal door that she didn't want to speak to anyone.

Her son Nicky, convicted of assault in 2002, is serving a six-year term in upstate Alden, N.Y.

Which reminds me of Bill Cosby's questions of just a few weeks ago, "I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange jumpsuit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is the father?" All good questions. No good answers.

Rudy Fleming hasn't returned to West Brighton since his first arrest, but the gloomy building where he used to live is home to many thoroughly unsurprised residents. Yesterday, they offered vague shoulder shrugs and heard-it-before sighs when presented with the news.

"It's not abnormal around here, that's for sure," said a woman named Mona. Looking resigned, she ticked off a list of those she knew in the area who had been killed, including her nephew.

"It needs to stop," she said.

Yes, it does, and I've written about it before. But it won't as long as it keeps being treated as a War on Drugs problem or a War on Guns problem, or even a War on Poverty problem. It's a failure of the society to address the realities of "violent and predatory" versus "violent but protective." Once again I'm reminded of Heinlein's "History and Moral Philosophy" lecture explaining that human beings have only the moral sense that is instilled in them, and that education is normally done by older males. In this case, as Heinlein wrote in 1959,

These juvenile criminals hit a low level. Born with only the instinct for survival, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty to a peer group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to 'appeal to their better natures,' to 'reach them,' to 'spark their moral sense.' Tosh! They had no 'better natures'; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive.

And Rudy and his brother apparently learned only that low morality.

Only Fleming's neighbor, "Breezy," registered surprise.

"Shocking," he said.

Fleming was usually unflappable, he said.

"He was chill," Breezy said. "I knew him to do stupid s---, but not stupid s--- like that."

GUN ARREST

At Susan Wagner High School, sources said, Fleming was given several superintendent's suspensions -- usually for grave infractions -- and he was subsequently transferred to Port Richmond High School.

Again, straight from Heinlein:

"Back to these young criminals -- They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly were not flogged for their crimes. The usual sentence was: for a first offence, a warning -- a scolding, often without trial. After several offenses a sentence of confinement but with sentence suspended and the youngster placed on probation. A boy might be arrested may times and convicted several times before he was punished -- and then it would be merely confinement, with others like him from whom he learned still more criminal habits. If he kept out of major trouble while confined, he could usually evade most of even that mild punishment, be given probation -- 'paroled' in the jargon of the times.

"This incredible sequence could go on for years while his crimes increased in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever save rare dull-but-comfortable confinements. Then suddenly, usually by law on his eighteenth birthday, this so-called 'juvenile delinquent' becomes an adult criminal -- and sometimes wound up in only weeks or months in a death cell awaiting execution for murder."

He had singled me out again. "Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house ... and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken -- whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment, please?"

"Why ... that's the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!"

"I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be?"

"Uh ... why, mine, I guess."

"Again I agree. But I'm not guessing."

Neither am I.

In May 2001 he was issued a ticket for disorderly conduct outside his brother's apartment in the West Brighton Houses, in a building on the 1000 block of Castleton Avenue.

Six months later, then 16, he brandished a loaded .380 high-point semi-automatic pistol at truancy officers in the basement of St. Peter's R.C. Church, New Brighton.

The gun incident prompted the Truancy Reduction Alliance to Contact Kids (T.R.A.C.K.) program, which helps round up hooky players, to require officers to use metal detectors and physical searches for weapons before transporting any student.

Officers managed to talk the gun away from Fleming. While they were doing so, he admitted at a later parole hearing, he "had a little accident in my pants."

Convicted of gun possession and sent to Washington Correctional Facility in Comstock, N.Y., after two years Fleming said at a parole hearing that he wanted to get out and start his own business, perhaps become a masseuse.

"You are a young guy. You should be going to college, not sitting here in prison like a jerk," an officer said to him at the meeting. "You could be a doctor, lawyer, or any of the fine professions. ... You don't have to live this life."

And here was the "appeal to his better nature" - a "better nature" that he didn't have because no one had ever taught it to him.

He was denied parole, the report noting that "there is a reasonable probability that you would not live and remain at liberty without violating the law."

But under state law, Fleming was granted a conditional release in June -- required after an inmate completes six-sevenths of a sentence, provided there are no major infractions on his or her record.

His release was conditioned upon treatment, said Scott Steinhardt, spokesman for the NYS Division of Parole, though he declined to specify what type.

Had Fleming been required to serve his entire sentence, he would have been released in November 2004 with no restrictions, Steindhardt said.

"He was not a [parole] board release, and that's important," Steinhardt said.

Meaning "It's not our fault he killed someone!"

At the time of last week's shooting, Fleming held a job at a Manhattan restaurant, had a curfew and appeared to his parole officer to be getting his life on track: All his reports were positive.

I'll bet.

But Breezy said he saw Fleming about a month ago at a Bronx bar. Fleming liked women and getting high, Breezy said, and that night looked to be enjoying himself.

"Getting high" is apparently "positive."

STREET SHOOTING

The violent elements of Fleming's life came together early Thursday morning, as he prowled the streets of the Lower East Side with four other young men and two girls.

And a .357.

They encountered Ms. duFresne, her fiance, Jeffrey Sparks, and another couple, Scott Noth and Mary Ann Gibson, who had just left a bar.

Fleming pistol-whipped Sparks and grabbed Ms. Gibson's purse, witnesses said.

"What are you going to do, shoot us?" Ms. duFresne is said to have remarked.

Fleming responded by firing his .357 Magnum revolver once into her chest.

She was pronounced dead later that morning.

Fleming was picked up by police at the Staten Island Ferry terminal in St. George late Sunday.
Sources say he had another emotional episode when he was arrested for the killing, an echo of the "EDP" (emotionally disturbed person) mark of his first arrest.

This time Fleming complained that he was sick, banged his head against a wall and said he was dizzy. Police said they didn't believe him, but he was brought to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

Fleming is now being held without bail on murder, robbery and assorted charges. The gun and a scarf he was allegedly wearing at the time were found in his godfather's Manhattan apartment, where he had been staying.

Yesterday prosecutors said life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty were the likely possible outcomes for the young man.

In pictures of him being transported to a holding facility, Fleming, his head against the window of a police vehicle, is apparently crying, his death wish perhaps granted.

It's a difficult lesson to learn, and one that we as a society seem completely unprepared to face, but the kids being produced by these conditions are, as Theodore Dalyrmple illustrated in The Frivolity of Evil, not recoverable. We don't have the resources in this society to make a dent in the problem once these kids reach their teens. No society does. Ms. duFresne's death is the result of decades of bad social policy, but it is Rudy Fleming's crime. It was his decision. It was not his fault that delinquent adults were never there to instill a moral sense in him before he reached adulthood, but now that he's an adult, he must live with - or die by - the results of his actions, and people like Ms. duFresne and her loved ones must suffer from the failure of society to instill a moral sense in these abandoned, vicious children.

Dept. of They Never Ever Stop:

Ravenwood commented on, well, actually ripped on this op-ed column on the PittsburgLive.com site by "associate professor of history and director of the Second Amendment Research Center at the John Glenn Institute at Ohio State University" Mr. Saul Cornell. Ravenwood reveals that the "Second Amendment Research Center" is funded by the Joyce Foundation, a group dedicated to "meaningful reforms" and providing "a model for gun policy nationwide." Denise of The Ten Ring also waxed eloquent on the topic.

Now it's my turn.

Taking a bite out of the 2nd

By Saul Cornell
Sunday, January 30, 2005

The Department of Justice decided to revise the Second Amendment.

Really? I thought they had decided to make a plain statement of meaning, not a revision. I haven't noticed any change in the wording as it is archived. As I see it, the Dept. of Justice has merely done a scholarly analysis of the meaning of the Second Amendment and concluded what the 1982 Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee of the Judiciary of the United States Senate said:

The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms therefore, is a right of the individual citizen to privately possess and carry in a peaceful manner firearms and similar arms. Such an "individual rights" interpretation is in full accord with the history of the right to keep and bear arms, as previously discussed. It is moreover in accord with contemporaneous statements and formulations of the right by such founders of this nation as Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams, and accurately reflects the majority of the proposals which led up to the Bill of Rights itself.

It would seem the Dept. of Justice's report is hardly a revision. But that's how Prof. Cornell sees it:

It has produced a 100-page memo designed to give activist judges a historical pretext for striking down existing gun laws.

Now THIS is RICH! Given the fact that "activist judges" are responsible for the current state of judicial affairs concerning the Second Amendment!

Up until just prior to the Civil War, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protected an individual right of citizens, a right outside of militia service, to "keep and carry arms wherever they went," as I detailed in The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie. In fact, Chief Justice Taney stated in the majority decision of Scott v. Sanford:

(Citizenship) "would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State." (My emphasis)

That's a pretty fair listing of the "rights of the People" as protected by the Bill of Rights against infringement by government. These rights were so inviolate that the Court decided that blacks, free or not, could not be citizens because to grant them that status would thereby confer those rights - irrespective of membership in a "well regulated militia" - upon them. It was not until AFTER the Civil War that "activist judges" declared that the Second Amendment protected only against infringement of this right by Congress in U.S. v. Cruikshank, thereby violating the expressed intent of Congress and the People in the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments because the Justices just couldn't BEAR to see black citizens exercise their legal right to keep and bear arms.

Let's make sure we understand each other here: "Activist judges" means judges who, as 9th Circuit Court Justice Alex Kozinski put it, "constitutionalize" their "personal preferences." That's what the Courts have been doing to the Second Amendment now for decades - all in the name of "public safety." The same argument the Brady Bunch, et al. use today.

Let's continue:

Rewriting the Bill of Rights has been pawned off as nothing more than a return to the original understanding of the amendment. Yet this revisionist interpretation has nothing to do with the original.

Reads the Second Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The department's revised Second Amendment contends the right of individuals to keep and carry guns shall not be infringed.

The Department of Justice has erased the preamble, which states the purpose of the amendment, to create a "well regulated Militia." The revision goes well beyond the idea of interpreting the Constitution as a living document that must respond to changing times. In effect, Justice believes it can expunge language that it finds inconvenient and substitute language more ideologically suitable in its place.

We're supposed to take associate Prof. Cornell's word as an authority that this is what the Amendment really means. I find it hugely ironic that he is now claiming that what's being done is not only a "living document" revision, but "goes well beyond" such revision. Let me quote a perhaps more competent (and less biased) authority, Laurence Tribe, Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard and author of the text American Constitutional Law from which this quote is taken:

Perhaps the most accurate conclusion one can reach with any confidence is that the core meaning of the Second Amendment is a populist / republican / federalism one: Its central object is to arm 'We the People' so that ordinary citizens can participate in the collective defense of their community and their state. But it does so not through directly protecting a right on the part of states or other collectivities, assertable by them against the federal government, to arm the populace as they see fit. Rather the amendment achieves its central purpose by assuring that the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification consistent with the authority of the states to organize their own militias. That assurance in turn is provided through recognizing a right (admittedly of uncertain scope) on the part of individuals to possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes -- not a right to hunt for game, quite clearly, and certainly not a right to employ firearms to commit aggressive acts against other persons -- a right that directly limits action by Congress or by the Executive Branch and may well, in addition, be among the privileges or immunities of United States citizens protected by §1 of the Fourteenth Amendment against state or local government action.

Laurence Tribe is hardly a right-wing gun-nut. He was one of Al Gore's lawyers during Bush v. Gore in 2000, and is a decided lefty. Or let me quote more fully from Justice Kozinski in his dissent to the decision to deny an en banc rehearing of Silviera v. Lockyer, which seems to take a quite opposite position to Professor Cornell:

Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that “speech, or . . . the press” also means the Internet...and that “persons, houses, papers, and effects” also means public telephone booths....When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases - or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we’re none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as springboards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it’s using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.
The able judges of the panel majority are usually very sympathetic to individual rights, but they have succumbed to the temptation to pick and choose. Had they brought the same generous approach to the Second Amendment that they routinely bring to the First, Fourth and selected portions of the Fifth, they would have had no trouble finding an individual right to bear arms.

Justice Kozinski here perfectly illustrates "judicial activism" as it relates to the Second Amendment. Or how about 9th Circuit Justice Jay Gould's dissent to the en banc rehearing of Nordyke v King?

An “individual rights" interpretation, as was recently adopted by the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson, consistent with United States v. Miller, is most consistent with the text, structure, purposes,and history of the Second Amendment, as well as colonial experience and pre-adoption history. It also reflects what I consider to be the scholarly consensus that has recently developed on the question of how to best interpret the Second Amendment. We should recognize that individual citizens have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, subject — in the same manner as all other core constitutional rights — to certain limits. Thereafter, the chips will fall where they may, and decisions in due course will clarify what is and is not constitutionally permissible regulation, and the further standards for addressing it.

These are justices sitting on the bench of the most liberal Appeals court in the nation, citing legal precedent and historical documentation that associate Professor of History Cornell claims don't exist:

Although gun rights advocates have tried to claim that bearing arms did not have a military connotation at the time the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, they have never been able to provide a body of evidence to support their claims. The only evidence they have produced is a single text written by the losing side in the original debate over the Constitution.

I beg your pardon? I refer you, once again, to the Report of the Subcommittee linked above, and how about this page from UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh? Or the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in U.S. v. Emerson? There are REAMS of scholarship showing that the "bearing arms" language in the Second Amendment did not restrict "the right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms" to milita service only, else Laurence Tribe would not have reached the conclusion he did.

Remember, Prof. Cornell is writing an opinion piece for a newspaper. He doesn't have to be right, he just has to be convincing. The ill-informed who read this piece think "Hey, he's an authority, he must be right." That's why his side has to keep repeating the big lies.

To continue:

Substituting the ideas of the losers for the winners turns history into a science-fiction fantasy, in which one might as well argue that the patriots lost the American Revolution, or the South won the Civil War.

Except we're winning. The original meaning that existed after the American Revolution, the meaning that was stripped by the Courts after the Civil War, is being slowly restored.

For better or worse, the real Second Amendment links the right to bear arms with a well-regulated militia. If Americans want to change this language it will have to be by the slow and uncertain process of amending the Constitution.

And here he simply lies. The "real Second Amendment" has never been linked to militia service in the Supreme Court, and only in the lower courts by (apparently deliberate) misinterpretation of the 1939 U.S. v Miller decision. Again, quoting Justice Kozinski:

The able judges of the panel majority are usually very sympathetic to individual rights, but they have succumbed to the temptation to pick and choose. Had they brought the same generous approach to the Second Amendment that they routinely bring to the First, Fourth and selected portions of the Fifth, they would have had no trouble finding an individual right to bear arms. Indeed, to conclude otherwise, they had to ignore binding precedent. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), did not hold that the defendants lacked standing to raise a Second Amendment defense, even though the government argued the collective rights theory in its brief. The Supreme Court reached the Second Amendment claim and rejected it on the merits after finding no evidence that Miller’s weapon - a sawed-off shotgun - was reasonably susceptible to militia use. We are bound not only by the outcome of Miller but also by its rationale. If Miller’s claim was dead on arrival because it was raised by a person rather than a state, why would the Court have bothered discussing whether a sawed-off shotgun was suitable for militia use? The panel majority not only ignores Miller’s test; it renders most of the opinion wholly superfluous. As an inferior court, we may not tell the Supreme Court it was out to lunch when it last visited a constitutional provision.

Yet that's what most of the Appeals Court decisions Professor Cornell bases his worldview on have done. But he depends on the overwhelming majority of the public not understanding any of the history, legal or otherwise, and simply accepting his appeal to authority. It is the gun control side that needs to pursue the "slow and uncertain process of amending the Constitution" but it never even tries that path. Instead they try to pass unconstitutional laws, and failing that they try to legislate from the bench. Now that even that course is failing, they once again are attempting to deceive an ignorant public in order to anger and panic them. This way they can pursue the legislative angle, or possibly influence those "activist judges" who are willing to constitutionalize their personal preferences.

Professor Cornell concludes:

Distorting the past for ideological reasons is unacceptable, in the cause of either gun rights or gun control.

On this I concur fully. But I recognize that it is Professor Cornell and his ilk that have been "distorting the past for ideological reasons" for decades, and now they realize they're losing, and they're getting desperate.

I said previously that I started this blog to give me a place to be an advocate for individual rights - a place to voice my views and to hopefully help educate a populace that too often hasn't been told what their rights are supposed to be under the system of government we're supposed to be living in. This is a perfect example. Professor Cornell's piece will reach a lot more people than my rebuttal will, but I will reach some, and so will Ravenwood, and so will The Ten Ring, and so will others. Individually and together we have a voice denied to us previously, and that voice is at least in part responsible for the fact that we are winning the war of ideas, at least on this particular battlefield. Not only that, but we're winning because people are able to read the historical record for themselves and draw their own conclusions, no longer restricted to the opinions of "authorities" like associate professor Saul Cornell.

(Edited to add: I sent the Professor a link to this piece. His email address is Cornell.14@osu.edu. If he responds, I'll publish it.)

UPDATE - 2/3: Professor Cornell has responded. I'll post the response and my reply as soon as I can. This piece will require some time, though, so be patient.

Further Update: The response is up here.

I Don't Know Exactly What to Say...

But I'll say a lot anyway.

As I type this, The Smallest Minority will receive its 250,000^th recorded site visit on Sitemeter since I set up the service on May 16, 2003.

Thanks, y'all.

Check out this graph of the last 11 months of traffic:

Or this graph of 85 weeks of site visits (I didn't save a couple of weeks, apparently, but it's pretty obvious when I got a link from Kim du Toit or Steven Den Beste, or an Instalanche)

For a pretty-much single-issue blog, those aren't bad numbers. (I'm not Kim du Toit, but hey, who is?) And it's a slow, but steady progression.

I started this blog to give me a place to be an advocate for individual rights - a place to voice my views and to hopefully help educate a populace that too often hasn't been told what their rights are supposed to be under the system of government we're supposed to be living in. I hope I've done at least some of that. I hope to do a lot more of it. Thank you all for visiting, and reading, and most especially, commenting. This thing works better with feedback. Thanks to everybody who has linked to me, either in a post, or in their blogrolls. That's feedback too, and I really appreciate it.

As I just checked, visitor number 250,000 came from IP 69.139.92.# and went directly to my February 2004 archive page to see this cartoon from last year's Superbowl, brought by a Google search on "Political Cartoons." That cartoon has brought me a LOT of traffic, and still does.

Well, Mr. or Ms. Visitor, if you checked the front page after looking at the cartoon, thanks for visiting. Tell your friends! Y'all come back, now, y'hear?

And the Answer is...

Apparently "yes."

I'd have stolen the title from the Geek with a .45's post linking to this story, but I've already used something very close to that for a different post of my own. Let's review:

Actress shot dead outside New York bar

Friday, January 28, 2005 Posted: 1724 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) -- An aspiring actress and playwright whose work explored life's darker sides was shot and killed as she confronted an armed robber during an early-morning street holdup.

The robber ran off with his accomplices, police said. No arrests have been made.

Nicole duFresne, 28, had just left a bar in a trendy section of the Lower East Side with her fiance and another couple early Thursday when they were approached by four or five men.

Witnesses told investigators that one of the men grabbed for the other woman's purse and duFresne intervened, asking, "What are you going to do, shoot us?" A man then fired one shot at her, police said.

"One of them said, 'Give me your money.' I didn't see he had a gun. I didn't understand what was happening," said Jeffrey Sparks, duFresne's 28-year-old fiance.

Sparks, an online music producer, said he pushed the mugger aside and was pistol-whipped on the face.

DuFresne died from a gunshot wound to her chest.

The couple, both from Minneapolis, moved to Brooklyn from Seattle two years ago and were to be married in October.

A graduate of Emerson College in Boston, duFresne was a founding member of the Present Tense Theater Project and acted with the LAByrinth Theater Co., according to her online resume. She wrote a play called "Burning Cage" with Mary Jane Gibson, who was with her and her fiance at the time of the shooting.

"Burning Cage" is about two women in a Boston asylum who are targeted for clandestine brainwashing experiments with LSD and shock treatments. The play toured in 2002 at fringe theater festivals in Canada and the United States.

DuFresne's other play, "Matter," is about an amnesiac whose apartment is taken over by a violent and seductive intruder. It was performed in Brooklyn in 2003.

Actress & playwright. Resident of New York. Former resident of Seattle. Apparently never a resident of Reality. I guess she believed that in gun-free NYC the answer to her question was "no." And I guess she didn't believe that someone would be willing to kill for the contents of someone else's purse.

And, I'm sure, her friends are blaming the gun for her death, not the goblin behind the trigger, though he could have just as easily have used a knife.

Why do so many people not understand that evil exists in the world, and is banal, not exotic? DuFresne wrote about how a "violent and seductive intruder" could invade an apartment, but can't believe someone will shoot her during a mugging? "Those without swords may still die upon them," indeed.

I'm HOME!

And, if you don't mind, I think I'll get reaquainted with my wife.

Blogging resumes... sometime.

The ACLU Backtracks - Without Any Explanation

But I have a good idea why. On January 13, I posted The ACLU Defines What is and What Isn't A Fundamental Civil Liberty, having picked up the link from Different River via Clayton Cramer. Well Striderweb found the story here, and wrote the ACLU a nice letter. Specifically, he told them:

Actually the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment is the free exercise of religion. The elipses in your quote, which omits the religion clause, is flatly deceitful.

He reports that on January 27 - without explanation - the ACLU revised its web page to show the entire First Amendment, and they now say:

It is no accident that freedom of speech is protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights

where before they stated:

It is probably no accident that freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment

I love the internet. Widespread dissemination of information, and instant feedback.

I TOLD You I'd Be Gone Some in January

But, I'm back. It's hell being out of town with no internet access.

I'm suffering from severe withdrawal, but I still have work to do. Expect some posting later. Perhaps much later.

Failure of the Will

Gary Cruse's latest Best of Me Symphony is up. In this week's entry, Wince and Nod has a piece on the war in Vietnam. He reviews McNamara's view of the war in contrast to Dr. Jerry Pournell's, and finds Pournell's the more convincing argument. The war in Viet Nam was not, Pournell argues, a war against the North Vietnamese, it was a war against the Soviet Union - a war we were winning:

Well, I don't disagree except that we did not lose the war in Viet Nam. We accomplished what we needed, which was a long campaign of materiel attrition as part of the Seventy Years War. In 1973 we demonstrated that at small cost we could hold South Viet Nam forever, and bleed the North and their Russian allies white as we did.

The Democrats threw away a victory. We weren't defeated, we simply came home when the Democrats decided that having won it wasn't worth defending the Gooks with American blood and treasure. If that sounds harsh, I am sorry, but it's what happened. We had won. The border was stabilized in the sense that it took a large army to cross it and ARVN with U.S. supplies and air support could destroy any such large army. Every time and to the last man.

Yet that "small cost" was more than enough to let the media tell us that "we couldn't win" over and over until we believed it.

Wince argues:

I grant you the North had the will. Americans had the will, too, and would have kept it if our leaders had not failed us. First Johnson, McNamara and the defense department failed by running the war poorly from 65 to 68. Then Nixon failed by blowing up his own Presidency and his own party. Then the Democrats failed in 1975, when all they had to do was provide supplies and air power. At that point we had successfully Vietnamized the war, but they required American style material, air power and logistical support, which we abruptly and cravenly cut off. I cannot forgive the Congressional Democrats for dishonoring our commitment in this fashion. From whence do you think our reputation for having no staying power came?

Wince leaves out the power of the 5^th Column of the media. Howard Fineman's January 12 MSNBC piece on "The Death of the American Mainstream Media Party" illustrated that power:

Still, the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto. Now it's pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things. The seeds of its demise were sown with the best of intentions in the late 1960s, when the AMMP was founded in good measure (and ironically enough) by CBS. Old folks may remember the moment: Walter Cronkite stepped from behind the podium of presumed objectivity to become an outright foe of the war in Vietnam. Later, he and CBS's star White House reporter, Dan Rather, went to painstaking lengths to make Watergate understandable to viewers, which helped seal Richard Nixon's fate as the first president to resign.

The piece I referred to yesterday where Knight-Ridder Newspapers has declared the war in Iraq "unwinnable" is another.

Vietnam and Iraq do share many parallels. The most striking one is that what we are fighting isn't the "insurgents" in Iraq, just as what we were fighting in Vietnam wasn't the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. In Vietnam we were fighting the Soviet Union. The VC and North Vietnamese army were their proxies. We were fighting the ideology of communism by, as Dr. Pournell points out, bleeding it white economically. In Iraq we are fighting another ideology, but this time it is not one we can defeat economically. It's one we can only defeat by establishing the conditions necessary for individual freedom in the Middle East. I'm not Steven Den Beste, and I'm not Victor Davis Hanson, and I'm not Bill Whittle, but even if I cannot express it as logically, clearly, or eloquently as they, I understand that what we are fighting is militant Islam - a force in the world that is virulent, powerful, and dedicated to the destruction of freedom and democracy throughout the world. This is a religious war, because one side of it isn't a country, but a religion.

Another parallel is that the government's announced reasons for fighting in Vietnam weren't the core reasons we fought. We did it to fight Communist expansion, but the goal was the actual destruction of the Soviet Union. As Dr. Pournell pointed out, that took seventy years. Certainly we invaded Iraq to unseat Saddam Hussein and remove him as a threat, but the more important reason was, as Steven Den Beste diagrams in his "strategic overview" of the Global War on Terror:

The large solution is to reform the Arab/Muslim world. This is the path we have chosen.

Any bets on how many decades that will take? Any argument on just how important that goal is?

As I said yesterday, the only way we will lose this war is if we lose our will. The media is doing everything in its power to sap our will, and I'm goddamned tired of it. The media lost the war in Vietnam, and it's trying to repeat the achievement. But this time an American pullout means a lot more that the deaths of a few million brown people and the loss of American pride. We pulled out of Vietnam after we had accomplished what needed to be accomplished, and then we abandoned the South Vietnamese in an unconscionable act of cowardice. THEY paid the price of that cowardice. If the media "wins" again, WE will pay, and so will the rest of the world.

Where's Uncle Walter When You Need Him?

or

Too Bad Dan Ra^ther's Shot His Wad of Credibility

He could have broken this story on the CBS Evening News and convinced everybody.

It seems that Knight-Ridder Newspapers group has concluded that the Iraq war is unwinnable.

An analysis of a U.S. newspaper group concludes the United States is headed toward defeat in the Iraqi war.

The Knight Ridder Newspapers analysis of U.S. government statistics shows the Sunni Muslim insurgency in Iraq steadily gaining on the U.S. military, the Detroit Free Press, owned by Knight Ridder, reported Saturday.

Among factors cited:

-- U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts rose from an average of about 17 per month in May 2003 to a current average of 82 per month;

-- The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded by hostile acts per month has spiraled from 142 to 808 during the same period;

-- Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003 rose from 735 a month to 2,400 in October;

-- The average number of mass-casualty bombings has grown from zero in the first few months of the U.S.-led occupation to an average of 13 per month; and

-- Electricity production has been below prewar levels since October.

"All the trend lines we can identify are all in the wrong direction," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research organization.

In other news, Knight-Ridder announced that, with the firing of the great General George McClellan, the Army of Northern Virginia will be unstoppable. The civil war is unwinnable. All the trend lines are in the wrong direction.

Also, after the fall of Singapore and then Corregidor, the war in the Pacific is unwinnable. All the trend lines are in the wrong direction.

Now that the media has shown itself to be a "clear and present danger" due to the fact that it has thrown the wrapper off its activities as a Fifth Column, perhaps now the President can make the moonbats really froth at the mouth by invoking the government's power of censorship in time of war.

Yes, I'm serious.

The only way we will lose this war is if we lose our will. The media is doing everything in its power to sap our will, and I'm goddamned tired of it. The media lost the war in Viet Nam, and it's trying to repeat the achievement. But this time an American pullout means a lot more that the deaths of a few million brown people and the loss of American pride.

Mostly Cajun Has a Birthday

His first blogiversary is today. Drop by and wish him well, if his commenting software will let you. (It wouldn't let me.)

Congratulations! Here's to many more!

Another "Compare and Contrast"

From England:

Drink thieves stab grocer to death
By Oliver Poole
(Filed: 23/12/2004)

A shopkeeper was killed for two bottles of spirits after he tackled thieves who were trying to rob his grocery store.

Mahmut Fahri, 59, had pepper spray directed into his eyes and was stabbed in the chest in Bounds Green, north London, after he confronted two men as they attempted to grab the bottles from behind the counter.

Despite being mortally wounded and unable to see properly, he chased his attackers down the street armed with a walking stick before collapsing at a minicab office.

A trail of blood on the pavement marked his pursuit.

Mr Fahri, a Turkish Cypriot, who had owned the business for more than 15 years, died three hours later at North Middlesex Hospital.

Wayne Denton, 30, a minicab driver at Cavendish Radio Cars, said: "I was in the office and heard a bang on the door. I opened it and there he was.

"I don't think he realised he was stabbed because the excruciating pain was coming from his eyes.

"He said, `My eyes, my eyes. I've been attacked'. His face was orangey-brown where he had been sprayed.

"But then I began to see the blood pouring down him. It was running down his legs. He opened his jacket and I could see a patch of blood on his jumper.

"He was shaking and I could see he was in a lot of pain but he could walk. We went back into his shop to get some cloth to wipe his eyes and he started rubbing them.

"I called the police and the ambulance. He had drinks and cigarettes behind the counter, and all of that had been disturbed by the robbers.

His wife came after that and she was absolutely hysterical at seeing so much blood on the floor and seeing her husband so severely injured.

"His son and daughter were there as well and he was still conscious but he realised he was in serious trouble.

"They put him into an ambulance on a stretcher and had an oxygen mask on him. That was the last I saw of him."

Locals said the area around Whittington Road, in which the shop is located, was a renowned place for drug addicts and alcoholics to congregate. It was not the first time problems with thieves had occurred at the store.

Mr Fahri had joined the local Neighbourhood Watch group after telling customers that he was concerned about safety. He had bought an Alsatian dog for protection but it died three months ago.

Nathaniel Peter, 22, a regular customer, said: "He was a very community-minded person and was very respected by a lot of people. Sometimes I used to go into the shop without any money and he would just tell me to pay later.

"He was only 5ft 5in but he would have put up a fight if someone was trying to steal as he was a man of principle."

Mr Fahri had two grown-up children and four grandchildren and was known as a passionate Manchester United fan. He lived with his wife, Pembre, a mile from his shop in Riverway, Palmers Green.

The family was too distressed to comment.

Around 20 floral tributes had been placed outside the store. One, from Mr Fahri's two children and their families, read: "In loving memory of Dad." Another said: "To our uncle, remembering you with all our heart."

Police said they were searching for two men, one aged around 35 and the other in his 20s, of Asian or Turkish appearance. Both had been wearing dark clothing at the time of the attack.

An investigating officer said Mr Fahri saw them lurking in a corner of his shop, the Albion grocery store, at 9.15pm on Tuesday and confronted them when the older one reached for the bottles.

"It seems to have happened very quickly," he said. "The guy went to get the bottles and then stabbed him."

Both men are believed to have got away with the alcohol they had taken.

From the U.S.:

Clerk Shoots Knife-Wielding Robber

Milwaukee - Neighbors of Ayesh Food Market on Hampton Avenue and 19th Place say nearly everyone in the area knows and likes the owner, and police say even a man who came in to rob the store knew him.

"He was armed with a four inch steak knife," said Lt. Steven Spingola of the Milwaukee Police Department. "He originally confronted the owner of the store, who was standing in an aisle, and demanded money."

When a 23-year-old cashier saw the owner in trouble, police say he grabbed the store's revolver and jumped out from behind the counter. That's when police say the suspect started chasing the cashier.

"He was pursued up the aisle by the suspect, and he was cornered near the meat counter at the south end of the store. He then fired his weapon in self-defense," said Lt. Spingola.

While one bullet went through the glass, police say three bullets went into the suspect, killing him. Officers say the store's gun is a legally owned weapon.

"It's completely legal. It's their right to do that. The police can't be everywhere at one time," said Lt. Spingola.

Regular customers were glad to hear no one else was hurt, especially the owners.
"These are good guys. They treat you right," said Henry Blount.

"The owner was in the far aisle shielding a customer from the suspect," said Lt. Spingola.

Police say the suspect appeared to be in his 30s.

Police say they don't expect any charges to be filed in this case.

Edited to ad: My most sincere apologies. I forgot to credit Zendo Deb for the second story link.