If there is a chief spokesman for the far left, it has to be MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. It is difficult to think of a talking head that is more fawned over by liberals. On his nightly cable television show, the #1 show on MSNBC, he “analyzes” the news and adds his own angry, leftist flavor. One of his segments is to name a “Worst Person in the World.” People such as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Bill O’Reilly and Robert Novak have made the list.
Recently, he named Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia the “Worst Person” for his role in the Heller v. DC verdict, which allows people in Washington, D.C. to have a gun to defend themselves. Terrible, I know. In naming the conservative justice to the top spot, he said a couple of the most idiotic things I have ever heard. First, he said:
Despite years of fog created by the NRA and right-wing organizations, that isn’t very complicated: For the purposes of forming a state militia, you’re entitled to keep and bear arms. Obviously, those would have to be the kind of arms in use in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was passed — the musket, the wheel-lock, the flint lock, the 13th century Chinese hand canon. Stuff like that.
According to this Constitutional scholar, “arms” invented after the ratification of the Constitution are not covered by said Constitution. The irony here is that he was exercising his First Amendment rights on a medium first used for news over 100 years after the ratification of the Constitution. This point of view is rejected even by members of Democratic Underground, which are not exactly known for their right of center opinions:
if you are going to read “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” as applying only to technologies available in 1791, then you can’t very well read the First Amendment as applying to technologies developed since 1791. Or the Fourth Amendment (guess we don’t have any protection against warrantless searches of our homes by millimeter-wave cameras or ultrawideband radar). Or the Fifth Amendment, which must only apply to torture technologies available in 1791. etc.
Hard to believe I’m saying this about a post from DU, but excellent point.
Another point that should be made relates to the left’s attitude towards the Constitution as a “living, breathing document.” It is the liberal position that the Constitution, as Al Gore said, “was intended by our founders to be interpreted in the light of the constantly evolving experience of the American people.” Somehow, this attitude applies to every part of the document except the Second Amendment. How is that possible? It isn’t.
The other comment that Olbermann made in his bit was almost as stupid as the first:
Scalia, of course, simply decided that the militia part of the Second Amendment is some sort of quaint anachronism that he could happily ignore.
Scalia understands what a militia is, as defined by our Founding Fathers, far better than the ex-sportscaster turned liberal blowhard. If he had any respect for his viewers, he would have taken the time to simply Google it. He could have learned what the Founders meant when they wrote “militia.” For example:
- Patrick Henry said, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.” “
- George Mason, who along with James Madison is called the “Father of the Bill of Rights” said, “I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.”
- James Madison said, “A WELL REGULATED militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”
- Thomas Jefferson said, “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
- Tench Coxe said, “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
- George Washington said, “A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
It wasn’t difficult to find those quotes and it isn’t difficult to see through Olbermann’s argument. He could not have been more wrong. His perspective on the Second Amendment and the Constitution is childlike and insulting. He has either insulted those who watch him, or exposed them as Constitutional and historical morons. My guess is it’s a little of both. Either way, he would be well advised to take a little of his own advice and, on matters of the Second Amendment, “shut the hell up.”
