…in today’s frontloader attack in Jerusalem, generic viagra troche this is another example of a mass killer who didn’t need a gun to cause death and panic.
In fact, discount viagra salve if you watch the video on the linked page you can see many civilians with guns in the crowd.
The men with the guns weren’t dangerous.
The man with the construction equipment was.
10 comments July 2nd, 2008
…about how wrong the Chicago Tribune’s editorial on the Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment decision was, viagra sale sovaldi but Neolibertarian at large did a much better job of taking them AND the New York Times to task than I ever could:
Now it is possible that the staff of the Chicago Tribune does not have the legal analysis available to them that a New York Times reporter does but The New York Times itself makes the exact same historical revision in their equally hysterical editorial about Heller: “. . . But that’s a sharp reversal for the court: as early as 1939, it made clear that the Second Amendment only protects the right of people to carry guns for military use in a militia.”
The New York Times editorial ignores the Times’ own article on the decision and, again, simply re-writes history in a more convenient form.
The question has to come up: “Why lie?” Why not just say that Heller is a bad decision? Neither the Tribune nor the Times needed this lie to make their point that government should be able to disarm its citizens without constraint.
The answer goes back to Georges Sorel, the French Philosopher and Social Theorist. Sorel was a collectivist, he inspired both communists and fascists, and his big contribution to collectivist thinking was the idea of the energizing myth.
“Sorel’s belief in the need for a deliberately-conceived “myth” to sway crowds into concerted action . . . The epistemic status of the idea of “myth” is of some importance, and is essentially that of a working hypothesis, with one fundamental peculiarity: it is an hypothesis which we do not judge by its closeness to a “Truth”, but by the practical consequences which stem from it. Thus, whether a political myth is of some importance or not must be decided, in Sorel’s view, on the basis of its capacity to mobilize human beings into political action . . . ” [this is from wikipedia, but there is a very similar analysis in the recent book Liberal Fascism].
The Tribune and the Times lie for the greater good: the Tribune believes in taking guns away from the people of Chicago and that this greater good justifies their lie. The important thing is not the truth but rather the energizing myth that people have no individual right to keep and bear arms.
The Times has a slightly bigger agenda but they are no less forthright about it; the Times editorial says: “This audaciously harmful decision, which hands the far right a victory it has sought for decades, is a powerful reminder of why voters need to have the Supreme Court firmly in mind when they vote for the president this fall.” [my emphasis added]The times lies to influence the election: their energizing myth is that the Supreme Court has morphed into some sort of dangerous right wing activist court that can only be held back by electing Obama.
When viewed through the lens of objective truth, it is hard to see how the Times can both contradict its own article on Heller and characterize the same court that just ruled Guantanamo detainees are legally indistinguishable from Americans arrested for shoplifting in the Bronx as tilting to the far right but viewed through the lens of the energizing myth it makes perfect sense. The truth is not important; moving the masses to action is important and, viewed this way, the Times makes perfect sense.
Add comment July 1st, 2008
I just read the opinion itself and it looks like it’s going to be no help forcing Wisconsin to allow state residents to carry a gun for self-defense. The opinion specifically states:
Like most rights, discount viagra nurse the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.
It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any
manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, sickness con-
cealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment
or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast
doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by
felons and the mentally ill, ambulance or laws forbidding the carrying of fire-
arms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or
laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of
arms.
Of course, I don’t understand how a complete prohibition on bearing a weapon for self defense comports with the rest of their decision, but I’m not a lawyer so I don’t possess the ability to believe in two contradictory thoughts at the same time.
1 comment June 26th, 2008
Will the fact that the decision was five to four help the Republicans or the Democrats in the next Presidential election?
1 comment June 26th, 2008
It amazes me that only five out of nine Supreme Court Justices understood that a complete ban on practical gun ownership violated the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
I’m not a big fan of George Bush, cialis discount but thank God he got to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. I’m sure this would have went the other way, if she’d still been on the bench.
Add comment June 26th, 2008
In a factory full of weapons and ammunition, cialis generic hospital Paul Dehne hung a co-worker to death.
5 comments June 12th, 2008
…to go on killing sprees:
Japan struggled to make sense yesterday of the stabbing rampage that killed seven people at the centre of Tokyo’s comic book and “anime” youth culture, best viagra cialis as local reports uncovered messages showing the troubled attacker detailed his plan in advance on the Internet.
18 comments June 10th, 2008