Robert Hairless
Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2003
- Messages
- 3,983
Interesting to me was an April 2007 article by Tom Plate, a journalist, published by CNN as "Let's lay down our right to bear arms."
The thrust of Mr. Plate's argument is in its title. It's not a new or even interesting argument in itself, although it's likely to convert some people and affirm the beliefs of many others.
What's interesting, though, is Plate's selective insights into the Bill of Rights: "The right to free speech, press, religion and assembly and so on seem to be working well, but the gun part, not so much."
Plate probably is correct about the "right to free speech" and "press" from the viewpoint of a journalist. Those rights as exercised by journalists and others in the media are well protected. Even when anyone outside those professions is shocked by the irresponsibility or downright falsehoods and fabrications published by the media, their right to do so is protected.
For example their professions' response to faked stories that are published from time to time is that such incidents are atypical and, anyway, must be tolerated because the rights to free speech and a free press are too important to be restricted because of individual abuses.
I don't agree. My disagreement is reluctant because I know that we will be destroyed if we selectively parse the Constitution with the goal of casting out those parts that don't "seem to be working well."
Those are the very parts of the Constitution--parts that don't "seem to be working well"--that must be preserved and defended. The others don't need it.
The Constitution is most needed to protect the unpopular rights of Americans (those that inevitably would be denied after outrageous incidents) and the rights of unpopular Americans (those who are despised, either rightly or wrongly).
A constitution isn't needed to protect what and whom everyone likes at the same time. When a people are in general agreement there is no disagreement, no conflict. Constitutions are made to guide people when they disagree and are in conflict. Not lightly made, they must not be lightly altered, most especially not when the change involves a fundamental right of the people.
Part of the trouble with Mr. Plate's way of thinking is that it's based on the assumption that the Constitution will be parsed selectively, and only to remove those parts that he thinks don't "seem to be working well."
Mr. Plate doesn't understand that his thinking is fatal to the Constitution. When he and others who think that way open the door to amend the Constitution to remove what they want, that door is open and it's only a matter of time--probably not too long--before others will move to make the Constitution read the way they like. There are no parts of the Constitution that could survive determined assault by true believers with an argument.
Take, for example, those First Amendment protections of the press and speech. They don't work, at least not as well as Mr. Plate the journalist believes, and he himself points at a big crack in them:
Quote:
Foreigners sometimes believe that celebrities in America are more often the targets of gun violence than the rest of us. Not true. Celebrity shootings just make better news stories, so perhaps they seem common.
Mr. Plate seems not to realize that he has just indicted the media for slanting the news. It is a most serious indictment because it raises the vital issue of whether a press that puts its own interest in making "better news stories" above the public's interest in having balanced, accurate, trustworthy "news stories" deserves any special protection or treatment. It can be argued--and I do argue--that a press concerned primarily with its own interests should be cast loose entirely. Let the press--which has been expanded for no good reason to include every medium--fend for itself, just as other businesses must. The press, and indeed all the media, is no more nor less than an industry. It is not a sacred cow that should be encouraged to roam at will and trample with impunity all who get in its way.
There is another most serious problem revealed in Mr. Plate's comment that "Celebrity shootings just make better news stories, so perhaps they seem common." Shootings of every kind that result in harm to good people "just make better news stories" than shootings in which good people defend themselves. We know that the media in general ignore the latter: stories about the Pearl, Mississippi, high school incident in which the principal got his .45 ACP pistol to stop a rampage omit the principal's use of his gun to save children's lives. There are similar stories and the media treats them similarly. The gun is demonized and, as Jim McCloskey showed in his recent Staunton News Leader cartoon attacking gun owners, gun owners are denigrated and made to seem Bubbas.
The issue is more than simple fairness and decency. It goes to the heart of the matter. What is happening is that the media feeds itself the distortions it creates. The media circularity has gained such momentum and force that by now the media itself has poisoned the feast. It sees what it has taught itself to see, and the public suffers mightily because the information it gets from the media is tainted beyond all hope of rescue.
Mr. Plate himself demonstrates the problem created by the protected media: an obviously intelligent man, he looked at the effect of the media's distortion of firearms in its focus on those that "just make better news stories" and does not see that it's time to "lay down the right" to a press that has Constitutional protection to abuse the public interest.
The thrust of Mr. Plate's argument is in its title. It's not a new or even interesting argument in itself, although it's likely to convert some people and affirm the beliefs of many others.
What's interesting, though, is Plate's selective insights into the Bill of Rights: "The right to free speech, press, religion and assembly and so on seem to be working well, but the gun part, not so much."
Plate probably is correct about the "right to free speech" and "press" from the viewpoint of a journalist. Those rights as exercised by journalists and others in the media are well protected. Even when anyone outside those professions is shocked by the irresponsibility or downright falsehoods and fabrications published by the media, their right to do so is protected.
For example their professions' response to faked stories that are published from time to time is that such incidents are atypical and, anyway, must be tolerated because the rights to free speech and a free press are too important to be restricted because of individual abuses.
I don't agree. My disagreement is reluctant because I know that we will be destroyed if we selectively parse the Constitution with the goal of casting out those parts that don't "seem to be working well."
Those are the very parts of the Constitution--parts that don't "seem to be working well"--that must be preserved and defended. The others don't need it.
The Constitution is most needed to protect the unpopular rights of Americans (those that inevitably would be denied after outrageous incidents) and the rights of unpopular Americans (those who are despised, either rightly or wrongly).
A constitution isn't needed to protect what and whom everyone likes at the same time. When a people are in general agreement there is no disagreement, no conflict. Constitutions are made to guide people when they disagree and are in conflict. Not lightly made, they must not be lightly altered, most especially not when the change involves a fundamental right of the people.
Part of the trouble with Mr. Plate's way of thinking is that it's based on the assumption that the Constitution will be parsed selectively, and only to remove those parts that he thinks don't "seem to be working well."
Mr. Plate doesn't understand that his thinking is fatal to the Constitution. When he and others who think that way open the door to amend the Constitution to remove what they want, that door is open and it's only a matter of time--probably not too long--before others will move to make the Constitution read the way they like. There are no parts of the Constitution that could survive determined assault by true believers with an argument.
Take, for example, those First Amendment protections of the press and speech. They don't work, at least not as well as Mr. Plate the journalist believes, and he himself points at a big crack in them:
Quote:
Foreigners sometimes believe that celebrities in America are more often the targets of gun violence than the rest of us. Not true. Celebrity shootings just make better news stories, so perhaps they seem common.
Mr. Plate seems not to realize that he has just indicted the media for slanting the news. It is a most serious indictment because it raises the vital issue of whether a press that puts its own interest in making "better news stories" above the public's interest in having balanced, accurate, trustworthy "news stories" deserves any special protection or treatment. It can be argued--and I do argue--that a press concerned primarily with its own interests should be cast loose entirely. Let the press--which has been expanded for no good reason to include every medium--fend for itself, just as other businesses must. The press, and indeed all the media, is no more nor less than an industry. It is not a sacred cow that should be encouraged to roam at will and trample with impunity all who get in its way.
There is another most serious problem revealed in Mr. Plate's comment that "Celebrity shootings just make better news stories, so perhaps they seem common." Shootings of every kind that result in harm to good people "just make better news stories" than shootings in which good people defend themselves. We know that the media in general ignore the latter: stories about the Pearl, Mississippi, high school incident in which the principal got his .45 ACP pistol to stop a rampage omit the principal's use of his gun to save children's lives. There are similar stories and the media treats them similarly. The gun is demonized and, as Jim McCloskey showed in his recent Staunton News Leader cartoon attacking gun owners, gun owners are denigrated and made to seem Bubbas.
The issue is more than simple fairness and decency. It goes to the heart of the matter. What is happening is that the media feeds itself the distortions it creates. The media circularity has gained such momentum and force that by now the media itself has poisoned the feast. It sees what it has taught itself to see, and the public suffers mightily because the information it gets from the media is tainted beyond all hope of rescue.
Mr. Plate himself demonstrates the problem created by the protected media: an obviously intelligent man, he looked at the effect of the media's distortion of firearms in its focus on those that "just make better news stories" and does not see that it's time to "lay down the right" to a press that has Constitutional protection to abuse the public interest.
