The Tyranny Of Rights Based On Needs

The ongoing debate over our Second Amendment has continued to rage on from the days of Woodrow Wilson until now. The goal of the political left has been to effect a complete repeal of that Amendment, regardless of their claims that, "nobody wants to take your guns away." Dismissive attitudes being substituted for substantive debate not withstanding, there are some supremely dangerous concepts being included in this national dialogue emanating from our esteemed opponents who reside on the left side of the aisle.

One of the recurring themes I've heard over and over again, is that we do not need more than x number of bullets in an magazine. We do not need certain weapons to kill a dear. We do not need more than a handgun for instance to protect our homes. My objection is to the word, "need." Make no mistake about it, this concept of what we need being determined for us, while it may sound reasonable to some, and even articulated professionally, is perhaps the single most evil argument that has been proffered, and this is true whether the person offering this point realizes the evil being committed or not.

One of the founding principles of our nation was this. Our rights, while recognized by the Constitution, are given to us as a matter of being born human. They are not granted to us by a benevolent government, but by our creator. Those governments that do not recognize these rights are acting in bad faith against their fellow man, and are usurpers of the natural rights all men, who are born with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. They are certainly not based on what a third party has deemed us to need.

There are several dangers associated with the concept of a central government determining what our needs are, and then taking it upon themselves to tell us what those needs are and limiting us to that. I strongly suggest that who ever reads this essay go ahead and click the link. What my friend Buzzsawmonkey so articulately describes is that once our sovereignty is traded for the bag full of goodies that our ruling elites have so benevolently promised to provide us as our needs, all pretense will be dropped, and we will have neither our sovereignty nor that which was promised. Our cost will be our freedom, and any ability to do anything about it.

Another danger is that the debate has subtly changed, and the premise that anyone has the authority to describe our lives in terms of what they tell us our needs are has become accepted by far too many Americans. Individual property rights, as defined in our founding document, are the rights of all Americans to keep what ever they create, irrespective of what they need. We, simply because we want to, get to keep what we carve our for ourselves. I can not identify a single passage in the U.S. Constitution that says where a central planner can determine that our property rights end where that central planner believes we have accumulated sufficiently to satisfy our needs. In terms of the Second Amendment debate, our right to bear arms certainly was not based on what any future government would determine what our needs were, in fact the opposite is true. Our Second Amendment is based on what any government who was in charge would hopefully fear us having.

The following is a debate between piers Morgan, and the only one arguing our position that actually managed to articulately state all of the points that should have been made. Fitting that once again, it happened to be Newt Gingrich who gets it right. I have seen about a half dozen of these debates featuring Morgan, and a half dozen others, and no one hits the exact heart of the matter, except for Speaker Gingrich. Our right to bear arms was not based on hunting, target shooting, skeet shooting, our ability to shoot home intruders, or to even see us better able to protect ourselves. The entire purpose for the Second Amendment was so that those who were in charge of our government would be afraid of the citizens that they governed.

I do not wish to label all people who want a gun free America as evil. I have no doubt that there are many who wish the Second Amendment did not exist are truly genuine with the concern that they feel. Sincerity is not the issue. What is the issue here is the dishonesty with which the debate is being held. Piecemeal abridgments of our Constitutional Rights are wrong, no matter how much the offending party believes that their concern for our well being supersedes our own right to choose for ourselves.

There are ways however that our Constitution can be changed honestly. Our Constitution has within its text, two separate methods by which it can be changed. As evidence of this being possible to accomplish, both methods have been used to combine for a total to date of 17 such changes since the document became our supreme law. That translates to one change in our Constitution for every 13.5 years that we have been a nation. For those who wish to repeal the Second Amendment, all you need do is convince roughly three quarters of all Americans that they should follow along, and the right to bear arms will be a thing of the past. Just remember when you do it, should you be successful, Barack Obama will not be President forever. Your trust placed in the government may not be quite so deserved by the government that is in power in say a decade, two decades, a century, or even four years from now. I can remember hearing a lot of hand wringing about how evil and stupid George W. Bush was only a short time ago. The same imperial powers granted to the current group would transfer automatically to the next group, whether you like them or not.

Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.