Progressives always invoke the clause “A well-regulated militia…” from the 2nd Amendment as being justification for continued government infringements upon the Right to bear arms.

Unfortunately for them, the term “well-regulated” did not mean what contemporary progressives believe it to mean.

From Constitution.Org:

“The phrase “well-regulated” was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people’s arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.”

Uber-statist Dianne Feinstein wants Big Brother to take arms away from peaceful, law abiding citizens. But in a typical progressive self-contradiction, Feinstein has a CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT in addition to armed body guards!

Says hypocrite Feinstein:
“I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that’s what I did. I was trained in firearms. I walked to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon and I made the determination if somebody was going to try and take me out, I was going to take them with me.”

Doublethink be damned.

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/feinstein-1995-her-concealed-carry-permit-i-know-urge-arm-yourself-because-thats-what-i-did

Liberal radio host David Sirota had author Paul Finkelman on to discuss his smear essay about Thomas Jefferson: “The Monster of Monticello”. Like so many other NY government-worshipers, Finkelman spent the interview in full on pc attack mode, ripping the minarchist Jefferson to shreds for his racist views. Unfortunately, I could not call the show as I was driving the kids back from daycare, but I did write host Sirota a letter.

Note: Sirota is a reasonable, principled liberal and not ravingly partisan in the way that so many “useful idiots” are in the media, today. He remains refreshingly distant from the doublethink and self-contradictions of so many talk show hosts. He’s a statist, to be sure, but he’s fair.

The vicious tone of progressive Finkelman, on the other hand, underscores that there is a pernicious, concerted effort on the behalf of big government advocates to soil any opponent of their leviathan. Jefferson, regardless of his troubling contradictions, is perceived as a champion of government minimalism to many who question the benevolence of the ever-biggering Big Brother. Idols like Jefferson are rallying points for like minds. Thus, they must be pulled down and destroyed by progressives before any meaningful, ideological opposition can rally around them.

Here’s my letter to Sirota:

Dear Mr. Sirota,

I desperately wanted to call your show when you had Paul Finkelman on. I do concur with your guest that Jefferson is a study in contradiction. But the author had a ‘tone’ about him that suggests a lack of objectivity. He, of course, did not mention that Jefferson proposed freeing all slaves when he drafted a Constitution for the State of Virginia. He also did not mention that Jefferson took a number of slaves with him to Paris who merely had to request asylum there and they would have been granted their freedom.. but they chose to stay with Jefferson. Jefferson was also bound by Virginia law that made it illegal to free his slaves. I am not excusing Jefferson’s hypocrisy, but I think the author’s neglect to mention these circumstances and focus on a hyper-critical assault on him suggest a personal agenda.

Jefferson is, of course, a mythical hero to small-government conservatives and primarily libertarians (who are not conservatives, by the way). As a progressive (someone who believes in the benevolence of government), Jefferson, a government minimalist (at least in his writings), represents the antithesis of the progressive ideal.

Progressive Finkelman did little to contain his philosophical contempt.

Finkelman, a historian, was also confused about Herbert Hoover who is wrongly portrayed as a laissez-faire capitalist by benevolent government types like Paul Krugman. But Hoover’s high wage policies, limiting of immigration, pro union advocacy, pressuring for Fed credit expansion (6 fold increase in the Fed’s balance sheet), increasing federal spending 40% between ’31 and ’33, the RFC (the TARP of it’s day) and FFB (ag price supports), and the capper: the Dust Bowl manifesting Smoot Hawley tariff, all formed the groundwork for the “New Deal” programs credited to FDR and so admired by benevolent government types. Economists like UCLA’s Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian, Nobel Prize winner FA Hayek, as well as a consensus of academic economists were convinced FDR’s meddling in the economy, cartelization of his chosen corporations, institution of the corpo-fascist NIRA, confiscation of gold for the purpose of central bank monetary expansion, and agricultural price fixing did anything other than prolong the misery of the Depression.

To top it off, FDR, the poster boy for modern “progressivism” put 120,000 Americans into concentration camps.

Your guest was also flatly WRONG about Lincoln’s attitude about freeing the slaves. This is well documented. He communicated on many occasions that the Civil War was over preserving the Union and not about slavery. Lincoln, (so admired by Hollywood hagiographers like Spielberg) was every ounce the biggot that Jefferson was even going so far as to proclaim the inferiority of blacks and how they should all be deported at the end of hostilities. In addition, Lincoln was no champion of Civil Liberties having suspended Habeaus Corpus, imprisoning anti war newspaper editors, and instructing Sherman to engage in “total war” on AMERICANS. The war may have been about slavery for the South, but it was certainly not about slavery to the mega-maniacal uber-statist Abraham Lincoln.

I doubt Finkelman will be writing a book about the Monster from Illinois anytime soon.

David, I admire you. I regard you as a liberal and not a progressive. Your positions are thoughtful and your arguments are compelling. As a libertarian, we share a common ideological heritage and I hold your non-partisan views on civil liberties in the highest regard. I hope to call your show some day but I imagine I will end up tearing Michael apart for his superficial, phony “libertarianism”.

Good show. Keep up the good work.

Gnome

More Stefan Molyneaux brilliance.

Re: Bob Costas.

Progressive Bob lectured us futbahl fans on “gun control” at halftime of the Sunday Night game. Quoting another “progressive” (bourgeois socialist) sports jockey, Jason Whitlock, Costas lamented “If Jovan Belcher did not possess a gun, he and Kassandra Perkins would still be alive.”

Ooh, you are so enlightened, Bob. Thank you for educating us dumb, redneck futbahl fans. If
only we lived in NY or DC and thus had the capacity to reason like you we would all be so much better off. I so believe it is the righteous duty of aging, milquetoast, androgynous sports jockeys like you to intersperse their observations on men playing games in tights with ideological instruction whenever the opportunity presents itself. Thank you, Bob.

Hmm, but perhaps if Kassandra Perkins had possessed a gun, she would still be alive, today. Uh oh, now that complicates things a little, doesn’t it.

Note:
Sunday Night Football is, of course, broadcast by NBC, a company formerly owned by GE (a company bailed out by TARP and owes guvmint a lot of favors), and whose crony/flunky/corporate welfare junky CEO Jeff Immelt is Obama’s Jobs Czar.

The lattice of corporatist interconnections is extensive. Always consider the messenger before considering the message.