Found in my e-mail this morning:
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By GENE SMITH
The Capital-Journal
Americans, it seems, will enter the 21st century in a headlong race to see how fast they can surrender the last vestiges of their liberty to Big Government.
Seventy years of internal mobility and external threat have split the nuclear family, fatally crippled the church and left citizens worshipping Washington, D.C., as the well of all wisdom. Along the way, the American people have somehow given up on the idea that they should take responsibility for themselves, for the parenting of their children, for safeguarding the future of their nation.
In fact, first lady Hillary Clinton declared last week that "everything society does pales in comparison with keeping children safe." Bunk! Everything it does pales in comparison with raising mature, responsible adults -- something in short supply these days, at any age.
When they wrote the Constitution and added 10 amendments known since as the Bill of Rights, the patriots who founded the United States didn't intend thereby to create a tyrannical majoritarian government to replace the monarchy they had just fought a war to escape. Their sole purpose was to create a limited government that would allow every individual citizen the freedom to live life as (s)he chose, provided that didn't interfere with the rights of fellow citizens to do the same. Government was supposed to protect the citizens from outside aggression or from fellows who might want to restrict the rights of others.
How far have we strayed?
The 10th Amendment died in 1865.
The Ninth has always been ignored, especially since Alexander Hamilton -- later backed up and expanded by Justice John Marshall -- conceived the ideas of "implied powers" and the "general welfare."
The Eighth never applied to blacks, Indians or many immigrants in the 19th century and may have finally died in 1993 at Waco, Texas in the fiery embers of the Branch Davidian compound along with 79 men, women and children -- victim of Attorney General Janet Reno, the Clinton administration's grim Mother Superior, and her FBI.
The Seventh has been nibbled to death by activist federal jurists over the last 40 years or so.
The Sixth is on life support. Witness the four New York City street crime cops who shot Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black immigrant, in the back 41 times and never even had to make statements for months -- until the public heat got too great.
The Fourth and Fifth died together, victims of the nation's "War on Drugs" and enforcement agencies' endless quest for more money, people and power. Your property can now be seized by an array of both state and federal agencies -- on suspicion alone. And they are likely to arrive at 3 a.m., at the point of a battering ram, through the splinters of your front door.
The Third remains, Washington having discovered it is easier to tax the citizenry to pay for whatever specialized facilities the military might need.
The Second, designed as American's final protection from government tyranny, has been under assault since the Democratic convention riots in Chicago more than 30 years ago -- but never so viciously as under the current Clinton administration.
The spectacle last week, in the wake of the Littleton, Colo., school shooting is instructive.
The bodies of the two young berserkers and their 13 victims weren't yet cold before the media hounds were demanding the federal government "do something" to prevent future incidents.
Obligingly, like Louis Renault (Claude Rains), the Vichy French police captain in the 1942 film "Casablanca," Bill Clinton gave orders to "round up the usual suspects." In other words, blame it all on "the easy availability of guns to children."
Equally obligingly, after a brief early flash of rationality -- Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said he was "not sure gun legislation is what we need" and Sen. Bob Kerry, D-Neb., a combat veteran, said, "The most important thing for us to do is spend more time with our kids." -- the Senate last week scurried to "toughen" the nation's gun laws, banning importation of high-volume magazines from abroad (!), forbidding handgun purchases by anyone under 21 or possession of "semi-automatic" weapons by the same.
Never mind that Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, broke at least 29 existing laws (10 with guns) as they made their murdering way through Columbine High School. Even their parents broke a couple. Never mind some 30 explosive devices of various kinds (many made with propane) were found around the school later. Never mind that the Clinton administration has prosecuted only SEVEN gun-law cases in six years!
Never mind that one young gunman pressed his pistol to Cassie Bernall's head, demanding, "Do you believe in God?" She hesitated. "Yes," the 17-year-old replied. He killed her.
But Cassie Bernall, who had had her own teen troubles, is the right place to start.
Clearly the "answer" to such atrocities -- if there is an answer -- lies not in another attack on citizens' rights, but in a return to the strong values of a slightly earlier America, where children honored adults and no adult ever hesitated to correct a child who needed it; where families went to church as regularly as to work; where young people had chores at home and, often, part-time jobs elsewhere to help support their families.
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback was on the right track last week, when he introduced an amendment to the hasty new Juvenile Justice Bill calling on the entertainment industry to draft (and, presumably, abide by) a voluntary code of ethics to provide something they obviously need: a collective corporate conscience.
Americans weren't greatly concerned about the First Amendment a century ago. That could return.
You have to wonder. How will the movie industry, the games industry, the news industry feel when Washington starts regulating what they can say, how and where?
It is only a matter of time.
Copyright 1999 The Topeka Capital-Journal
------------------
John/az
"Just because something is popular, does not make it right."
www.countdown9199.com
[This message has been edited by John/az2 (edited May 18, 1999).]
----
By GENE SMITH
The Capital-Journal
Americans, it seems, will enter the 21st century in a headlong race to see how fast they can surrender the last vestiges of their liberty to Big Government.
Seventy years of internal mobility and external threat have split the nuclear family, fatally crippled the church and left citizens worshipping Washington, D.C., as the well of all wisdom. Along the way, the American people have somehow given up on the idea that they should take responsibility for themselves, for the parenting of their children, for safeguarding the future of their nation.
In fact, first lady Hillary Clinton declared last week that "everything society does pales in comparison with keeping children safe." Bunk! Everything it does pales in comparison with raising mature, responsible adults -- something in short supply these days, at any age.
When they wrote the Constitution and added 10 amendments known since as the Bill of Rights, the patriots who founded the United States didn't intend thereby to create a tyrannical majoritarian government to replace the monarchy they had just fought a war to escape. Their sole purpose was to create a limited government that would allow every individual citizen the freedom to live life as (s)he chose, provided that didn't interfere with the rights of fellow citizens to do the same. Government was supposed to protect the citizens from outside aggression or from fellows who might want to restrict the rights of others.
How far have we strayed?
The 10th Amendment died in 1865.
The Ninth has always been ignored, especially since Alexander Hamilton -- later backed up and expanded by Justice John Marshall -- conceived the ideas of "implied powers" and the "general welfare."
The Eighth never applied to blacks, Indians or many immigrants in the 19th century and may have finally died in 1993 at Waco, Texas in the fiery embers of the Branch Davidian compound along with 79 men, women and children -- victim of Attorney General Janet Reno, the Clinton administration's grim Mother Superior, and her FBI.
The Seventh has been nibbled to death by activist federal jurists over the last 40 years or so.
The Sixth is on life support. Witness the four New York City street crime cops who shot Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black immigrant, in the back 41 times and never even had to make statements for months -- until the public heat got too great.
The Fourth and Fifth died together, victims of the nation's "War on Drugs" and enforcement agencies' endless quest for more money, people and power. Your property can now be seized by an array of both state and federal agencies -- on suspicion alone. And they are likely to arrive at 3 a.m., at the point of a battering ram, through the splinters of your front door.
The Third remains, Washington having discovered it is easier to tax the citizenry to pay for whatever specialized facilities the military might need.
The Second, designed as American's final protection from government tyranny, has been under assault since the Democratic convention riots in Chicago more than 30 years ago -- but never so viciously as under the current Clinton administration.
The spectacle last week, in the wake of the Littleton, Colo., school shooting is instructive.
The bodies of the two young berserkers and their 13 victims weren't yet cold before the media hounds were demanding the federal government "do something" to prevent future incidents.
Obligingly, like Louis Renault (Claude Rains), the Vichy French police captain in the 1942 film "Casablanca," Bill Clinton gave orders to "round up the usual suspects." In other words, blame it all on "the easy availability of guns to children."
Equally obligingly, after a brief early flash of rationality -- Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said he was "not sure gun legislation is what we need" and Sen. Bob Kerry, D-Neb., a combat veteran, said, "The most important thing for us to do is spend more time with our kids." -- the Senate last week scurried to "toughen" the nation's gun laws, banning importation of high-volume magazines from abroad (!), forbidding handgun purchases by anyone under 21 or possession of "semi-automatic" weapons by the same.
Never mind that Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, broke at least 29 existing laws (10 with guns) as they made their murdering way through Columbine High School. Even their parents broke a couple. Never mind some 30 explosive devices of various kinds (many made with propane) were found around the school later. Never mind that the Clinton administration has prosecuted only SEVEN gun-law cases in six years!
Never mind that one young gunman pressed his pistol to Cassie Bernall's head, demanding, "Do you believe in God?" She hesitated. "Yes," the 17-year-old replied. He killed her.
But Cassie Bernall, who had had her own teen troubles, is the right place to start.
Clearly the "answer" to such atrocities -- if there is an answer -- lies not in another attack on citizens' rights, but in a return to the strong values of a slightly earlier America, where children honored adults and no adult ever hesitated to correct a child who needed it; where families went to church as regularly as to work; where young people had chores at home and, often, part-time jobs elsewhere to help support their families.
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback was on the right track last week, when he introduced an amendment to the hasty new Juvenile Justice Bill calling on the entertainment industry to draft (and, presumably, abide by) a voluntary code of ethics to provide something they obviously need: a collective corporate conscience.
Americans weren't greatly concerned about the First Amendment a century ago. That could return.
You have to wonder. How will the movie industry, the games industry, the news industry feel when Washington starts regulating what they can say, how and where?
It is only a matter of time.
Copyright 1999 The Topeka Capital-Journal
------------------
John/az
"Just because something is popular, does not make it right."
www.countdown9199.com
[This message has been edited by John/az2 (edited May 18, 1999).]