This guy obviously learned nothing in government schools, or is cursed with some pernicious common sense.
http://michaelsawin.tripod.com/essayarchive/id18.html
Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms
The other day, I went to the annual meeting of the Times' Writer's Group. This group is made up of people from St. Cloud and the surrounding area. There are no other criteria for membership -- except that you have an opinion, and you're able to write it concisely while meeting a deadline.
They've tolerated me, so far.
We don't get paid for our work, but the Times gives us little presents. This year, we got a pencil, an American flag key chain, and a poster that contains the words of the First Amendment to the Bill Of Rights.
I left the poster there.
Now, I'm all for the Bill of Rights, and for free speech, government staying out of the religion business and the rights of people to peaceably meet and petition the government. These are all good things.
If you talk to writers and journalists, they'll rhapsodize about the first amendment and how important it is to our freedom. How we have to embrace this idea fully, even if its application sometimes produces unpleasant material. We have to support the bad stuff, in order to keep speech free.
We have to allow the Nazis to march in Skokie. It's okay for the KKK to hold rallies and publish racist material. It's all right for artists to submerge crucifixes in urine, or use elephant dung in their paintings, or even take provocative pictures of young children in sexual poses. It's well within bounds of acceptable speech for someone to get up on a stage and cover their naked bodies is feces, blood, semen and other bodily fluids.
We've expanded our definition of free speech to include stuff we personally find abhorrent, all in the name of the first amendment. We not only protect the artist's rights to express themselves, we frequently subsidize their rights with tax breaks, grants and other forms of support.
Our society nearly worships the concept of free speech.
As I sat in that happy meeting at the Times office, I started thinking about the bill of rights. Why is it that these people are so passionate about the first amendment, when they so despise the second amendment?
Now don't get wrong. I don't own a gun, and I don't want to. When I was in the army, I learned this about guns: never draw your weapon unless you're going to fire; never fire if you're not going to shoot someone; never shoot someone unless you're going to kill them.
The concept of shooting to wound, we were told, is ludicrous. And in my experience in handling guns in the service, I found this to be right. Most of the time, if the weapons are drawn, you're not going to have time to choose where youre going to shoot. You're going to shoot and hope they go down -- so they can't return fire. Every soldier and cop I've ever talked to has agreed with me on this point.
Given what I was taught, I have decided to never own a gun. But I treasure the right I have own one if I want to.
Why is passionate adherence to free speech considered good, when the same passion about the right to keep and bear arms is considered bad? The bill of rights was written and approved by the same men. Hundreds of thousands of people in our country gave their lives so we can enjoy these freedoms.
It amazes me when people hold their noses and say "I hate what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it with my life," when talking about the right of someone to own child porn (producing it is illegal, but in some places owning it isn't).
Our courts have extended and expanded the definition of free speech at nearly every turn. Yet, when it comes to the second amendment, the courts have restricted the definition of the right to bear arms. "This is not what the founding fathers meant," is a common refrain.
Is that the standard? What those guys had in mind nearly 300 years ago? Okay by me. Let's divine, then, their take on state-funded abortion, or their take on some of the things we consider examples of free speech.
Let's put to the test flag burning, or stories and websites written by school kids that describe rape, torture and destruction of school officials and fellow students.
Do people really have the right to do pretty much whatever they want and call it performance art -- in the mindset of those Deists and borderline Puritans from the US's early days? Sure Jefferson had a little erotica collection, but do you think that he would have thought that bondage porn or pictures and stories of adults sodomizing children would be covered by the first amendment?
Before you answer that, take the same standard and apply it to the right to keep and bear arms. If you say that there's no way that those guys could have imagined armor-piercing bullets or nine millimeter handguns, you have to also admit that they never would have imagined that you could go to a convenience store and buy hardcore pornography -- or a wire that brings pictures of people having sex with animals right into your home.
My point? I wish people who cling to free speech at any cost were more tolerant of those who are just as passionate about the right to keep and bear arms.
I see it all the time. If you support the first amendment you're open minded, fair, intelligent, and objective. If you support the second amendment, you're a gun nut. Even though I've been around a while, I'm still surprised when I encounter this attitude: "I'm tolerant and open-minded about everyone but them!"
And yes, I'm sickened by the statistics. Gun murders in this country are inexcusable. And I know that if you own a gun, you're more likely to harm or kill yourself or someone in your family than you are someone from outside the family who tries to hurt you.
But I also know that the vast majority of gun murders in this country are committed with illegally-owned guns. If we merely enforced the laws we have now, we could put a huge dent in the number of people killed by guns every day.
I'm not a gun nut. Maybe I'm a freedom nut. And to me, the right to bear arms is as important a freedom as is my right to speech and expression. I'll never own a gun, and I'll never shoot anyone with a gun. I will never cover myself with Miracle Whip and leap from a stage into two giant pieces of bread and a piece of cheese either.
But I think it's more important to work and build a place where people don't feel a need to have guns. The work of peace, of true peace, is helping people to live without fear.
When we live without fear, we won't need to take arms up against each other, and most of the murders by gun will finally stop.
http://michaelsawin.tripod.com/essayarchive/id18.html
Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms
The other day, I went to the annual meeting of the Times' Writer's Group. This group is made up of people from St. Cloud and the surrounding area. There are no other criteria for membership -- except that you have an opinion, and you're able to write it concisely while meeting a deadline.
They've tolerated me, so far.
We don't get paid for our work, but the Times gives us little presents. This year, we got a pencil, an American flag key chain, and a poster that contains the words of the First Amendment to the Bill Of Rights.
I left the poster there.
Now, I'm all for the Bill of Rights, and for free speech, government staying out of the religion business and the rights of people to peaceably meet and petition the government. These are all good things.
If you talk to writers and journalists, they'll rhapsodize about the first amendment and how important it is to our freedom. How we have to embrace this idea fully, even if its application sometimes produces unpleasant material. We have to support the bad stuff, in order to keep speech free.
We have to allow the Nazis to march in Skokie. It's okay for the KKK to hold rallies and publish racist material. It's all right for artists to submerge crucifixes in urine, or use elephant dung in their paintings, or even take provocative pictures of young children in sexual poses. It's well within bounds of acceptable speech for someone to get up on a stage and cover their naked bodies is feces, blood, semen and other bodily fluids.
We've expanded our definition of free speech to include stuff we personally find abhorrent, all in the name of the first amendment. We not only protect the artist's rights to express themselves, we frequently subsidize their rights with tax breaks, grants and other forms of support.
Our society nearly worships the concept of free speech.
As I sat in that happy meeting at the Times office, I started thinking about the bill of rights. Why is it that these people are so passionate about the first amendment, when they so despise the second amendment?
Now don't get wrong. I don't own a gun, and I don't want to. When I was in the army, I learned this about guns: never draw your weapon unless you're going to fire; never fire if you're not going to shoot someone; never shoot someone unless you're going to kill them.
The concept of shooting to wound, we were told, is ludicrous. And in my experience in handling guns in the service, I found this to be right. Most of the time, if the weapons are drawn, you're not going to have time to choose where youre going to shoot. You're going to shoot and hope they go down -- so they can't return fire. Every soldier and cop I've ever talked to has agreed with me on this point.
Given what I was taught, I have decided to never own a gun. But I treasure the right I have own one if I want to.
Why is passionate adherence to free speech considered good, when the same passion about the right to keep and bear arms is considered bad? The bill of rights was written and approved by the same men. Hundreds of thousands of people in our country gave their lives so we can enjoy these freedoms.
It amazes me when people hold their noses and say "I hate what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it with my life," when talking about the right of someone to own child porn (producing it is illegal, but in some places owning it isn't).
Our courts have extended and expanded the definition of free speech at nearly every turn. Yet, when it comes to the second amendment, the courts have restricted the definition of the right to bear arms. "This is not what the founding fathers meant," is a common refrain.
Is that the standard? What those guys had in mind nearly 300 years ago? Okay by me. Let's divine, then, their take on state-funded abortion, or their take on some of the things we consider examples of free speech.
Let's put to the test flag burning, or stories and websites written by school kids that describe rape, torture and destruction of school officials and fellow students.
Do people really have the right to do pretty much whatever they want and call it performance art -- in the mindset of those Deists and borderline Puritans from the US's early days? Sure Jefferson had a little erotica collection, but do you think that he would have thought that bondage porn or pictures and stories of adults sodomizing children would be covered by the first amendment?
Before you answer that, take the same standard and apply it to the right to keep and bear arms. If you say that there's no way that those guys could have imagined armor-piercing bullets or nine millimeter handguns, you have to also admit that they never would have imagined that you could go to a convenience store and buy hardcore pornography -- or a wire that brings pictures of people having sex with animals right into your home.
My point? I wish people who cling to free speech at any cost were more tolerant of those who are just as passionate about the right to keep and bear arms.
I see it all the time. If you support the first amendment you're open minded, fair, intelligent, and objective. If you support the second amendment, you're a gun nut. Even though I've been around a while, I'm still surprised when I encounter this attitude: "I'm tolerant and open-minded about everyone but them!"
And yes, I'm sickened by the statistics. Gun murders in this country are inexcusable. And I know that if you own a gun, you're more likely to harm or kill yourself or someone in your family than you are someone from outside the family who tries to hurt you.
But I also know that the vast majority of gun murders in this country are committed with illegally-owned guns. If we merely enforced the laws we have now, we could put a huge dent in the number of people killed by guns every day.
I'm not a gun nut. Maybe I'm a freedom nut. And to me, the right to bear arms is as important a freedom as is my right to speech and expression. I'll never own a gun, and I'll never shoot anyone with a gun. I will never cover myself with Miracle Whip and leap from a stage into two giant pieces of bread and a piece of cheese either.
But I think it's more important to work and build a place where people don't feel a need to have guns. The work of peace, of true peace, is helping people to live without fear.
When we live without fear, we won't need to take arms up against each other, and most of the murders by gun will finally stop.
