"Liberals Need Not Fear the Right to Bear Arms"

[wooderson]

You should be more careful about cherry-picking quotes.

The original Clinton line was from an MTV town hall meeting (remember when Presidents could answer questions on their feet), and his final response indicates that he's not saying he believes in clearly limiting freedoms. He doesn't transition clearly between the people making those claims and what he's doing instead, but it's clear that he's not endorsing exactly you say:

"What's happened in America today is too many people live in areas where there's no family structure, no community structure, and no work structure. And so there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities. So that's my answer to you. We can have—the more personal freedom a society has, the more personal responsibility a society needs and the more strength you need out of your institutions, family, community, and work."

(emphasis mine)

 

[Dravur]

Here is where it gets sticky....

I look at people individual and they fit somewhere on a sliding scale on the issues and this guy falls on the conservative side of the gun issue...

Here is the problem. Who is he gonna vote for for Prez? Hildabeast?

 

[sacp81170a]

When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities. So that's my answer to you.

Talk about cherry picking quotes. Weapons sweeps in public housing projects? It seems like he already gave the answer to whether he believes people are "responsible" enough to have inalienable rights. I don't know how you can equate "weapon sweeps" with anything but moving to limit personal freedom. Then again, I always thought "due process" was one little obstacle you had to overcome before you could "limit personal freedom". But, to the statist, that's merely a constitutional inconvenience.

Don't get me wrong. I feel like George Bush has become as much of an elitist statist as Bill Clinton ever was. Both parties have left me with a bad taste. The Patriot Act is ripe for abuse, and the recent (hopefully dead) Amnesty bill is a classic example of the "shut up 'cause we know what's good for you" attitude that pervades the fedgov. Republican big businessmen need cheap labor and Democrats need new voters. Pffagh!

 

[wooderson]

Talk about cherry picking quotes.

Haha. Clearly I was cherry picking... by including the entirety.

 

[sacp81170a]

We can have—the more personal freedom a society has, the more personal responsibility a society needs and the more strength you need out of your institutions, family, community, and work.

The cherry picking was the part you chose to emphasize. Taken on its own, which is apparently what you want us to do (else why bold it?), it's a fairly innocuous statement. That's what you want to do, paint a statement excusing a "weapons sweep" through public housing projects as something that it ain't, a statement about personal responsibility.

The article that was the subject of the original post has it right. That gentleman is what I would also call a classical liberal and is someone I'm sure I could find some common ground with. The previous (and increasingly, it seems) current administrations seem to have comparable aims, just different means of getting there. Perhaps Jefferson was right...

 

[TCB in TN]

Words used to actually mean something, liberal used to be just as this individual describes, unfortunately the MSM have re-defined the term to me leftist or socialist which is a far cry from liberal.