Tomorrow we'll discuss why Vietnam II (i.e. Iraq: Part Deux) is even more like Vietnam after today's intolerable revelations. History is lovingly circular and life is hilariously cruel. Right now I've got a piece by my dawg, my homie, and my resident bullshit expert Adam. Enjoy.
Don't ask me why, but I happened to read one of the most entertaining magazines of my life recently—American Rifleman. Actually, ask me why; I try to read as widely as possible. Time and Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, Mere Christianity and The Power Of Myth. I watch CNN and Fox News; I drink Coke and Pepsi. I like opposing viewpoints.
In case you were curious, American Rifleman is a darling little NRA-sponsored publication dedicated to such varied topics as: cleaning guns, owning guns, and, um, shooting guns. But the particular "article" which I had the extreme "pleasure" of reading, during a particularly grueling bowel movement, was about the evils of gun control, and three things immediately jumped out at me which set my Internal Bullshit Meter (IBM) from its standard grey-green color to piping hot red.
To begin, the article told the story of three women in a house. The door was kicked in and one woman was attacked. The others hid upstairs and when they heard only silence, crept back downstairs. Unfortunately, the bad guys were waiting and attacked them as well. The very next sentence—the author's witty attempt at a transition, I suppose—was "Now, I don't know if any of those three women wanted to own a gun, but…" and my meter clicked immediately to Bullshit Alert Yellow.
Since when are sympathy stories a valid way to argue constitutional law? Why not write about a toddler who finds a gun in his home and shoots himself? Or a father who blows his back out while cleaning his gun and bleeds to death on the table during Thanksgiving dinner in front of his wife, kids, Auntie Rose, and those adorable twins from next door? Sympathy stories mean nothing, and are designed not to prove points, but to make people sad/scared enough to believe whatever specious arguments follow (and they were specious).
The second jump on the IBM, to Bullshit Alert Orange, came in the form of the phrase "in clear violation of the intent of the founding fathers" in referring to gun-control legislation. This is stupid for several reasons: 1) every founding father had a different intent—those dudes could barely agree on anything, and some of them openly hated each other, so don't pretend we've nailed down their intentions. 2) even if we could magically average intent and get Ben Franklin's thoughts on home invasion in high-density urban areas, or assault weapons, or a 100-year-old man in a wheelchair's God-given right to shoot a lion in the face, since when are bound to follow that? Last time I checked, the constitution didn't say 'rule your lives based on what you think we might have wanted' but 'rule your lives based on this document and your common sense'. 3) 'intent' is a fundamentally unsound argument— would you refuse to school your children just because great-great-grandpa probably didn't intend for his ancestors to go to college? Hell no you wouldn't—you'd scoff at an old fuck who couldn't see they way society was headed, and know that you know better.
But fine, let's play the 'intent' game for a minute. Want to claim 'intent' to keep your guns? Fine, but women can no longer vote. Oh, snap! That was intent too! Do you own a house? If not, you can't vote either— intent got us again! I won't even go into who should be counted as three-fifths of a person; the point is, 'intent' is a garbage argument intended to draw on patriotic sentiment and goad people into doing/believing things, as if Jefferson and Hamilton having believed something makes it automatically worth believing. Fuck those old bastards— they were wrong about a lot of stuff.
So, with my IBM firmly in Orange and red spots floating in front of my eyes (grueling, grueling dump, I tell you), I read the last few paragraphs of the "article", wherein the author attacked 'revisionist' courts that had the audacity to claim grandpa shouldn't own an ak-47 because he's not part of a well-regulated militia. Suddenly, I had this blinding flash of insight that went:
BULLSHIT ALERT RED! BULLSHIT ALERT RED!
Someone should get this "author" a dictionary, because he/she has forgotten what 'revisionist' means in this country, which is to take the established legal stand on an issue (usually based on the constitution) and revise it. By disallowing gun ownership for those not in well-regulated militias, these courts are actually being constructionist courts. Another thing: courts can only be revisionist in this sense when revising previously established constitutional issues. Pay attention— on topics like stem-cell research and gay marriage, conservative pundits love to spew the phrase 'revisionist', although neither of those topics was addressed in the constitution, and therefore never had an established legal status to be revised. Only in retrospect have people tried to insert an asinine phrase like 'two dicks and no chicks = bad' into the constitution and pretend it was there all along.
It's funny to me that what American Rifleman actually wants is one of those crazy, activist, revisionist, non-constructionist courts to say "anyone can own any gun no matter what" even though that is clearly not what the Second Amendment states. What's funnier is that American Rifleman won't admit this, instead skewing reality to make it appear as if those dirty liberals are singeing the constitution yet again. Of course this "author" knows what 'revisionist' means, and knows the word is being used incorrectly, and so does the "editor" of this "magazine". But revisionist has become such a liberal-associated smear that they used it anyway, rendering their own argument about as strong as a wall made of Styrofoam and mortared with Cheez Whiz.
What I don't understand, and maybe someone can help me with this, is: why is revisionism is such a feared doctrine? Because it was originally associated with Marxian socialism? Because it puts the focus on evolutionary policy making (they're trying to say Jefferson was a monkey!)? Because change is scary?
Was it not a crazy revisionist court that said black people should be allowed to drink out of any water fountain? Or that women should be allowed to vote? Most of the social changes which have made this country more open and more equal were facilitated, if not initiated, by 'revisionist' courts. Sodomy should not be illegal, nor should miscegenation, yet without a court to strike down various old and outdated laws, revising our understanding of right and wrong, I could face jail time for marrying a Mexican, or making love to her poop chute.
It seems to me that revisionism is one of the biggest strengths of our legal system. It means that we are not strictly bound to the desires and minutiae of a handful of old, wealthy, white men with roughly 9th grade educations who could never have foreseen what America would look like in 200 years. It means that we have a strong frame and we hang the particular clothing of our society on it, just as previous generations did, and just as future generations will.
This has kept America progressing socially at a reasonable clip without the need for revolutions every 50 or 60 years to get things done. Remember: we are one of the few countries on Earth to not have witnessed a major internal threat to our political system in almost 150 years, precisely because of the fluidity of our system— because the founding fathers were geniuses in that they gave us something to build on, not something to live under.
All I know is that when my bullshit alert hits red, it's time put the "publication" down, wipe, and go play some World of Warcraft—at least that make-believe is more silly and fun than aggravating and hypocritical.
1 comment:
Ignoring that I learned way to much about Adam's bowel movements and that this entry contained that words "poop chute," this is well written and argued.
There came a point in history when the so called "revisionists" became heroes, yet they were regarded as liberal and radical in their day. I can only hope that we will make as much progress in the future as we have made in the last 100 years towards becoming a more open and equal society.
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