Homage to the President?
The Washington Post
May 16, 2000
Balint Vazsonyi
I must confess � for the longest time, exclamations about President
Clinton's brilliance were met with a "what makes you think so?" by me.
Not any more.
Addressing the Million Mom's March on Sunday, Mr. Clinton spoke about the
need to control guns. "The National Rifle Association is worried about gun
control, and worried about the Second Amendment," he said. "But see, the
Supreme Court said there was a right to travel, yet you need a license to
have a car, and you need a license to drive it. And no one is suggesting
that you shouldn't."
Admirable.
"So," he continued, "there is a constitutional right to own a gun, and a
constitutional right to travel. Do you hear anyone getting all worked up
about car control?"
His listeners roared their approval. They should have fallen to their
knees in the face of such brilliance.
To produce one full twist of logic is outstanding. To produce two of them
within a minute is exceptional.
Please bear with me as we follow this remarkable performance. Supreme
Court opinions are handed down with great regularity � they are also
reversed with some frequency. In any event, they are the temporal views of
five or six or seven or eight or nine people. They do have consequences,
of course. But elevating them to an article of the U.S. Constitution, to
the Bill of Rights at that, to the second of the 10 original amendments �
the word "preposterous" comes to mind.
For that is what the president did: He declared an opinion of the Supreme
Court, proposing the existence of an unwritten right to travel, the
equivalent of an irreversible enumerated right in the Constitution.
"Irreversible?" I hear you say. "What about the amendment process? Can it
not be simply repealed by majority vote?"
The answer is no. Not unless you are fixin' to do a whole new founding.
You see, those rights have not been granted by the men who wrote the
Constitution. They, unlike latter-day officeholders, never presumed the
authority to grant rights. "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms
shall not be infringed," they said. In other words, they simply recognized
and affirmed pre-existing rights and guaranteed their integrity.
But wait: The president's virtuoso mix of a court's assumptions with the
permanence of the Constitution was only one side of a double-whammy.
The other side consisted of the suggestion � delivered with irresistible
passion � that the right to travel is exercisable solely through the
automobile. That requiring a license to own and operate a car therefore
places the same restriction on travel as the proposed legislation would on
gunownership.
Nearly eight years on Air Force One may have wiped out all memories of
traveling by train, horseback, bicycle or � heaven forbid � on foot. But
surely, aircraft of various types would still be remembered. (One can also
travel in a car as a passenger.)
We need not worry about Mr. Clinton's memory. It is his intentions we must
worry about � his intentions and the brilliance with which he pursues
them. Inside one minute, employing two twists, he created parallels
between propositions that have nothing whatever to do with one another. He
accomplished this by postulating equivalences in the most blatant fashion,
first the equivalence between a Supreme Court opinion and an Article of
the Constitution, then between cars and guns.
While growing up in Hungary, I was exposed to the very best in
demagoguery. I thought no one would ever trump the operatives who had
first attended university in Germany, then went to Moscow to be trained at
the highest level of party schools.
They couldn't hold a candle to William Jefferson Clinton, because they
were able to rely on armored divisions of the Red Army, and the midnight
knock on the door if anyone disagreed.
President Clinton is succeeding in a framework still defined by the
Constitution. His listeners must be persuaded and believe their actions
are voluntary.
Most of them do.
Most of them just want a few innocent restrictions that will make life
safer, therefore better.
I said we need to worry about the intentions. We need to remind ourselves
of the first restrictions on smoking. Remember? Just a few places, where
smokers and non-smokers have their own space.
Only the terminally naive fail to see that the ultimate goal is to take
the guns out of the hands of ordinary Americans.
And that goal is pursued with every available means. Every tragedy is
turned into yet another opportunity to perform the twist and the double
twist.
I take my hat off.
We may lose America, but I take my hat off.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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