THE DECLINE AND FALL OF AMERICAN FREEDOM
http://www.boblonsberry.com/writings.cfm?story=358&go=4
Do you smell that?
It’s smoke.
From the bonfire of your burning freedoms.
America has changed, and not for the better. It has gone dark and cold, bereft of Liberty’s torch.
We have come to docilely accept the loss of rights and protections, even to welcome it, to stand like sheep for the slaughter.
Today’s example is guns.
No, that’s not right.
This isn’t about guns. Guns are merely a pretext.
This is about the cancerous expansion of governmental power. The grabbing of prerogative by faceless, petty popinjays intent on forcing their will and advancing their fame.
Idiots, unworthy of leadership.
Like Elliott Spitzer, the attorney general of New York. And his equally insipid counterparts in California, Florida, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
They want to change America, and they might do it. By abandoning their oaths of office and by defecating on the Constitution and by subverting the American Republic.
First, their true role.
Attorneys general in the various states have different duties, but they have a common origin – the ranks of the irrelevant. The cream of a state’s political ranks end up being governors or senators, maybe congressmen. The dregs – the wannabes but can’t quites – end up running for attorney general, or maybe lieutenant governor.
Spitzer, for example, is a nobody who bought his office with daddy’s money.
And that’s probably the root of the problem.
Inadequate people need to prove themselves, to play at being big men. To pretend they are something they never will be.
Here’s what I’m talking about.
Last month, another daddy’s boy – HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo – extorted a “deal” from the British company that pretends to be American handgun manufacturer Smith and Wesson. As part of this deal, anyone selling a Smith and Wesson handgun will have to abide by an impossible and ludicrous set of rules.
The agreement essentially subverts and castrates the sale of firearms in America.
And people who buy or sell guns rejected it.
Instead of complying with the Cuomo Manifesto, they decided not to do business with Smith and Wesson.
If you don’t like the devil’s music, don’t go to his dance.
So Smith and Wesson was condemned and rejected by the rest of the firearms community.
In a free country, that would be seen as freedom of choice, association and expression. In a free country, people would be able to disagree with an unelected cabinet secretary.
But this is America.
And in America, the gelded attorneys general shouted conspiracy.
People who disagree with the dictates of the left are not free Americans, they are criminals.
And so the attorneys general listed above have launched what they proudly call the first broad-ranging, national investigation of the firearms industry.
Claiming that gun makers and dealers have illegally conspired to isolate Smith and Wesson, the various pantloads have issued subpoenas demanding access to corporate records. People will be interrogated and an investigatory staff will be assembled.
They will plow through the records of the firearms industry, on an open-ended witch hunt.
America will say it’s about the Second Amendment, but it’s really about the Fourth. It’s not about the right to own guns, it’s about the right to be free from malicious prosecution.
The likely consequences are grim.
Companies may fold or be bankrupted – as Elliott Spitzer has specifically warned. They will be chased into the ground at taxpayer expense.
And the availability of firearms in America will be dramatically curtailed. The Second Amendment will crumble, not by democratic choice or societal will, but by the avaricious zeal of ambitious and unpatriotic politicians.
By bankrupting the industrialists, they will mothball the industry. They will rule without virtue of election.
The precedent was set with tobacco. The principles of democratic representation and rule of law were torpedoed and nobody complained.
So a new target has been acquired.
And the old game is being replayed.
You cut down one sequoia, and the rest are sure to fall.
You suffer one freedom to die in silence, and the rest are on their way out.
And I’m not sure what’s more disturbing.
The fact we are being sheared of our liberty, or the fact that no one cares.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2000
http://www.boblonsberry.com/writings.cfm?story=358&go=4
Do you smell that?
It’s smoke.
From the bonfire of your burning freedoms.
America has changed, and not for the better. It has gone dark and cold, bereft of Liberty’s torch.
We have come to docilely accept the loss of rights and protections, even to welcome it, to stand like sheep for the slaughter.
Today’s example is guns.
No, that’s not right.
This isn’t about guns. Guns are merely a pretext.
This is about the cancerous expansion of governmental power. The grabbing of prerogative by faceless, petty popinjays intent on forcing their will and advancing their fame.
Idiots, unworthy of leadership.
Like Elliott Spitzer, the attorney general of New York. And his equally insipid counterparts in California, Florida, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
They want to change America, and they might do it. By abandoning their oaths of office and by defecating on the Constitution and by subverting the American Republic.
First, their true role.
Attorneys general in the various states have different duties, but they have a common origin – the ranks of the irrelevant. The cream of a state’s political ranks end up being governors or senators, maybe congressmen. The dregs – the wannabes but can’t quites – end up running for attorney general, or maybe lieutenant governor.
Spitzer, for example, is a nobody who bought his office with daddy’s money.
And that’s probably the root of the problem.
Inadequate people need to prove themselves, to play at being big men. To pretend they are something they never will be.
Here’s what I’m talking about.
Last month, another daddy’s boy – HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo – extorted a “deal” from the British company that pretends to be American handgun manufacturer Smith and Wesson. As part of this deal, anyone selling a Smith and Wesson handgun will have to abide by an impossible and ludicrous set of rules.
The agreement essentially subverts and castrates the sale of firearms in America.
And people who buy or sell guns rejected it.
Instead of complying with the Cuomo Manifesto, they decided not to do business with Smith and Wesson.
If you don’t like the devil’s music, don’t go to his dance.
So Smith and Wesson was condemned and rejected by the rest of the firearms community.
In a free country, that would be seen as freedom of choice, association and expression. In a free country, people would be able to disagree with an unelected cabinet secretary.
But this is America.
And in America, the gelded attorneys general shouted conspiracy.
People who disagree with the dictates of the left are not free Americans, they are criminals.
And so the attorneys general listed above have launched what they proudly call the first broad-ranging, national investigation of the firearms industry.
Claiming that gun makers and dealers have illegally conspired to isolate Smith and Wesson, the various pantloads have issued subpoenas demanding access to corporate records. People will be interrogated and an investigatory staff will be assembled.
They will plow through the records of the firearms industry, on an open-ended witch hunt.
America will say it’s about the Second Amendment, but it’s really about the Fourth. It’s not about the right to own guns, it’s about the right to be free from malicious prosecution.
The likely consequences are grim.
Companies may fold or be bankrupted – as Elliott Spitzer has specifically warned. They will be chased into the ground at taxpayer expense.
And the availability of firearms in America will be dramatically curtailed. The Second Amendment will crumble, not by democratic choice or societal will, but by the avaricious zeal of ambitious and unpatriotic politicians.
By bankrupting the industrialists, they will mothball the industry. They will rule without virtue of election.
The precedent was set with tobacco. The principles of democratic representation and rule of law were torpedoed and nobody complained.
So a new target has been acquired.
And the old game is being replayed.
You cut down one sequoia, and the rest are sure to fall.
You suffer one freedom to die in silence, and the rest are on their way out.
And I’m not sure what’s more disturbing.
The fact we are being sheared of our liberty, or the fact that no one cares.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2000