THE COMMANDER of the national rifle association lives in wayne's world and believes in absolutes, remindful of charleton heston, preceding president of america's four million member gun club, toting ten absolutes in stone down the mountain.
You can pretty much bet that wayne lapierre considers every word in the bible to be the absolute true word of god, even the part which gives the value of pi as "three". Or, if he doesn't,he should, just to be consistent. The united states constitution is absolute, and sacred, in wayne's world.
wayne and his ilk are afflicted with what might be called "founder's original intent" disease, in which what we think today is far less important than what people thought over two hundred years go. Another name for this ailment might be "conservatitus".
Obama suggested that maybe we ought to think about conducting background checks of everyone who wants to buy a gun, just to make sure that a prospective gun owner aint, you know, crazy or nuthin', and maybe we ought to try to find out for sure if our culture of vicarious and thrilling violence actually contributes, perish the thought, to our national pasttime of random mass murder.
Then, he went on to suggest that perhaps it might be best to stop selling unlimited cartridges of ammunition for automatic weapons, and maybe even stop seeling a few of the machine guns as well. After all, there are so many kinds, (every country has its own brand) nobody would ever have to truly do without.
So naturally wayne pipes up, proclaiming the doctrine of "absolutes", explaining that we live in a universe of absolutes, destroying everything einstein tried to accomplish. Actually, einstein himself said his theory should be called the theory of absolutes, because, after all, the speed of light is, or seems to be, absolute.
And wayne says the second amendment is absolute; all american citizens have the inalienable god given right to own an arsenal of oozies and AK47s. Words mean precisely what they say, or seem to say, proclaimath wayne from on high, heeston style. Future generations of 1787 constitution worshippers shall have the god given right to own, what, lasar weapons?
Jefferson and madison would probably be wondering why we don't have sense enough to write a new, improved constitution, one that works in our modern world. He would undoubtedly be wondering why we don't have enough sense to figure out that words can never be sacred or absolute, and that placing reasonable limits on "absolute'"rights infringes not on said right.
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