Media whacko hates gun toters

[ericire12]

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20090823_E__J__Dionne__Gun-toters__message_is_anti-freedom.html

Gun-toters' message is anti-freedom

By E. J. Dionne

For The Inquirer
Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush?

How would our friends on the right have reacted to someone at a Reagan or Bush speech carrying a sign that read: "It's time to water the tree of liberty"? That was a reference to Thomas Jefferson's declaration that the tree "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Pardon me, but I don't think conservatives would have spoken out in defense of the right of every American Marxist to bear arms or to shed the blood of tyrants.

In fact, the Bush folks didn't like any dissent at all. Recall the 2004 incident in which a distraught mother whose son was killed in Iraq was arrested for protesting at a rally for first lady Laura Bush in New Jersey. The detained woman wasn't even armed. Maybe if she had been carrying, the gun lobby would have defended her.

The Obama White House purports to be open to the idea of guns outside the president's appearances. "There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally," Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said Tuesday. "Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality."

Gibbs made you think of the old line about the liberal who is so open-minded he can't even take his own side in an argument.

What needs to be addressed is not the legal question, but the message that the gun-toters are sending.

This is not about the politics of populism. It's about the politics of the jackboot. It's not about an opposition that has every right to free expression. It's about an angry minority engaging in intimidation backed by the threat of violence.

There is a philosophical issue here that gets buried under the fear that so many politicians and media types have of seeming out of touch with the so-called American heartland.

The simple fact is that an armed citizenry is not the basis for our freedoms. Our freedoms rest on a moral consensus, enshrined in law, that in a democratic republic, we work out our differences through reasoned, and sometimes raucous, argument. Free elections and open debate are not rooted in violence or the threat of violence. They are precisely the alternative to violence, and guns have no place in them.

On the contrary, violence and the threat of violence have always been used by those who wanted to bypass democratic procedures and the rule of law. Lynching was the act of those who refused to let the legal system do its work. Guns were used on election days in the Deep South during and after Reconstruction to intimidate black voters and take control of state governments.

Yes, I have raised the racial issue, and it is profoundly troubling that firearms should begin to appear with some frequency at a president's public events only now, when the president is black. Race is not the only thing at stake here, and I have no knowledge of the personal motivations of those carrying the weapons. But our country has a tortured history on these questions, and we need to be honest about it. Those with the guns should know what memories they are stirring.

And will someone please tell the armed demonstrators how foolish and lawless they make our country look in the eyes of so much of the world? Are we not the country that urges other nations to see the merits of the ballot over the bullet?

All this is taking place as the country debates the president's health-care proposal. There is much that is disturbing in that discussion. Shouting down speakers is never a good thing, and many lies are being told about the contents of the health-care bills. The lies should be confronted, but freedom involves a lot of commotion and an open contest of ideas, even when some of the parties say things that aren't true and act in less-than-civil ways.

Yet if we can't draw the line at the threat of violence, democracy begins to disintegrate. Power, not reason, becomes the stuff of political life.

Will some group of responsible conservatives, preferably life members of the National Rifle Association, have the decency to urge their followers to leave their guns at home when they go out to protest the president? Is that too much to ask?

That clown just used every play in the liberal playbook in that one damn article!

Here is my answer to the opening question posed about what if such a thing was done with Bush or Reagan:

[Kid Shelleen]

Only liberals seem to have the right to disagree with the government. I guess the the rest of us should make them happy and just:

[tombogan03884]

 Rather than facing down Russians in the Med it looks like I and the Marines I served with should have stayed home and killed "journalists", politicians and college professors.
We would have accomplished FAR more in defense of the Constitution and freedom.

[Kid Shelleen]

Rather than facing down Russians in the Med it looks like I and the Marines I served with should have stayed home and killed "journalists", politicians and college professors NOT FQ.
We would have accomplished FAR more in defense of the Constitution and freedom.

Amen

[twyacht]

He's on MY list,.....

[Sponsor]

[blackwolfe]

Scruffy leftist have guns?  I thought they didn't like guns?

[Dakotaranger]

What my European Socialist step-sister said when I posted the link on Facebook:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_assassination
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._assassination
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombingYeah, you're totally right. Ultimate statement of freedom.

My response:
I'm all for gun control. I don't think liberals, Marxists,National Socialist and all other leftists should be allowed to have them. See Sirhan Sirhan, Lee Harvey Oswald-marxist/lennist, Black Hand-Anarchist (but according to ol' Karl govt' would just fade away so marxist). A couple of years ago the media was making a big deal about a school ... Read Moreshooting in Scandinavia until it was discovered he was celebrating the October Revolution then all the sudden the story disappeared. The Vtech shooter's website was spouting so decidedly marxist things.

I still have my questions about the Mur BOMBING (not SHOOTING) but so I won't concede or deny that one for now. But it isn't conservatives or liberatians that assasinate people. The reason the PResident WILL NOT GET KILLED is very basic: No matter how much the President hates us what it would do to the country no one on my side of the isle wants to happen, for him to fail yes not die.
 EVERY LAST GUN OWNER realizes the gun control that would be pushed if the President was killed, we have already had to fight off a push to ban pocket knives, an attack on semi-auto rifles, again NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN to the commie, unless the left tries something. Since it was your side of the isle that made assasination movies about bush, if anything happens your side would be the first I would suspect

I'm still waiting for a response