OK,. back to my dilemma. \u00a0We established above that “Think” “Progress” is, like most (but by no means all) liberals, clueless about the reality of guns rights. Now, it’s on to the whole “couldn’t do logic in the throes of a full-bore Vulcan Mind Meld” bit.<\/p>\n
Because Millhiser wants to throw out fifty years of “progressive” social policy!<\/p>\n
Yet… forcing New York to honor Florida\u2019s poorly vetted carry licenses…flies directly in the face of the right\u2019s professed views on the 10th Amendment\u2019s guarantee of states rights. The NRA\u2019s bill is a direct attack on each state\u2019s ability to determine on its own how best to protect the public\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, however, this kind of fair weather tentherism is nothing new. Conservatives hate federal regulation of health care, until they want to invalidate state tort law or immunize the insurance industry from state consumer protection law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There is a difference – legally and, if you care about America’s history and liberties no matter what your political stripe,\u00a0morally\u00a0– between “human rights”, especially those enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and the niggling impedimenta of government policy and regulation on\u00a0\u00a0issues that are, let’s just say, a tad less exalted in this nation’s legal canon.<\/p>\n
This country decided – with the 13th Amendment and, also, the blood of 600,000 dead Americans – that the Bill of Rights’s exaltation of inalienable human rights trumps the states and, for that matter, The People. \u00a0The Supreme Court, and generations of decisions pushed by generations of lawyers pushed for everyone from Dred Scott to the ACLU, has established that the states do not <\/em>trump human rights.<\/p>\nLike the right to free speech and the press. \u00a0Or freedom of (and, apparently, from) religion. \u00a0And assembly. \u00a0And unreasonable (whatever that means under the prevailing legal winds) search and seizures. \u00a0And, now that Heller <\/em>has been incorporated by McDonald, <\/em>the right to keep and bear arms.<\/p>\nHealth care? \u00a0It’s not a constitutional right. \u00a0It’s an entitlement; we can argue over whether it’s something that should be dealt with at the federal level, or that of any government, and indeed we have <\/em>been arguing about it for the past two years, and I have a hunch we’ll renew it in 2013. \u00a0And while “progressives” have used FDR’s courts’ bogus interpretations of the Commerce Clause to federalize a lot of things, there is no rational way you can say Health Care exists on the same plane as Speech and Jury Trials.<\/p>\nMost conservatives and libertarians recognize this distinction; we are more or less absolute (with prudent exceptions) on issues of human rights, and reserving lesser issues to the states. Most “progressives” blur it, but at least recognize (and push!) federal supremacy on civil liberties issues, as they constantly remind you.<\/p>\n
…provided they’re not scary, like commoners with guns.<\/p>\n
So Mr. Millhiser is mistaken when he writes…:<\/p>\n
In other words, the right\u2019s lockstep embrace of the NRA\u2019s concealed carry bill is just one more example of conservatives\u2019 willingness to claim that the Constitution means whatever they want it to mean.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
…because, indeed, it’s Mr. Millhiser, not conservatives, with the case of moral confusion. \u00a0Are human rights a federal issue, or not?<\/p>\n
My stance is clear. \u00a0Mr. Millhiser seems to want it both ways.<\/p>\n
UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION: \u00a0Why yes, my stance is in fact consistent. \u00a0I believe that specifics of gun laws should be a state issue, provided that they are consistent with the idea that the right to keep and bear <\/em>arms is a right “of the people”. \u00a0Most state qualify, although I personally campaign for more “liberalization”. \u00a0Illinois’ law does not qualify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve got a bit of a dilemma here. In trying to address the claims made in\u00a0h this piece from Ian Millhiser in “Think” “Progress”, on a federal-level proposal for national reciprocity for carry permits, I faced a gnarly dilemma: \u00a0do I do a piece on “Think” “Progress”‘s efforts to cull selectively through facts to try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,63,51,22],"tags":[245],"class_list":["post-23892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-free-zones","category-lefty-alt-media","category-liberal-tyranny","category-victim-disarmament","tag-bergs-10th-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23892"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23909,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23892\/revisions\/23909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}