Judge Not 14 ► The Gun In Granny’s Garden

Unretouched pic of Judge Andy

The issue of guns was still foremost on Judge Andy’s mind this week, just like the last several weeks. Ever since the Newtown Massacre, in fact. Few other issues seem to engage him these days.

Meanwhile, the Judge Not Desk required no additional staffing, despite the fact that Judge Andy increased his output by 33% over last week. While it sounds like a lot, Larry (or is it Robert?), the child I hired to do this job, has improved considerably and was able to handle the increased Gun Nuttery. With Larry (or Robert) doing so well, the Temp I hired last week (who also has a name, but why should I bother learning it? She’s a temp) was able to pick up the slack.

Take it away, Judge Andy:

There have been so many specious arguments for not even considering rational gun safety legislation. Here is another one, this time from Austin Peterson. Peterson, oddly enough, also appears to be “The Libertarian Republic.” Judge Andy relies on his wisdom a lot. It’s easier than thinking.

Does more sugar equal fewer ants? More Austin Peterson propaganda.

I’m don’t quite see how the 14th Amendment could be used to raise the debt ceiling. However, to be fair, I still don’t see how the 14th Amendment could be used to declare corporations people. It seems that the 14th Amendment is pretty damned flexible. I’ll accept that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is smarter about these things than I am. Maybe there is a way to bypass the obstreperous House GOP/Teabaggers by using the 14th Amendment that I never considered.

However, since President Obama rejected using the 14th Amendment more than a month ago, Judge Nap is just scare-mongering again.

This is a perfect example of one of Judge Andy’s Tried & True Tactics™. The Laughing Libertarian likes to share commentary from people who will say what he believes, but gives him plausible deniability if it turns out to be a pack of lies.

This tactic is an extension of the second Fox “News motto. When Foxites say, “We report, you decide,” take careful note: They are, more often than not, pushing a single side of an issue with little counter-balance whatsoever. However, the use of the slogan tricks the brain-dead viewers into thinking they have just been presented with both sides of an issue.

I report; you decide.

Anyway . . . here’s what Walter Williams told the Daily Caller (in part):

If push comes to shove? Isn’t that precious? Walter Williams is full of crap, though.

True enough it’s the conventional wisdom that a “well-regulated militia” was needed in case the government suddenly turned into a rampaging Grendel. We would then be able to transform into Beowulf and save ‘Merka for herself. However, Walter Williams (and everyone else who believes this fairy tale) fails to take into account the definition of certain words back in the days of the Founding Fathers, and imbues those words with a 21st century meaning.

Thom Hartmann at Truthout, argues that “The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery.” As we all know, the Constitution was edited by committee and through some very serious horse-trading. The 2nd Amendment was no different. Hartmann lays it all out:

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says
“State” instead of “Country” (the Framers knew the difference – see the
10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the
southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote. Founders
Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on
that . . . and we all should be too.

In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the “slave patrols,” and they were regulated by the states.

[…]

By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South. Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down slave uprisings. As Dr. Bogus points out, slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.

If the anti-slavery folks in the North had figured out a way to disband – or even move out of the state – those southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse. And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service the slaves of the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, and the southern economic and social systems, altogether.

These two possibilities worried southerners like James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 slaves) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick Henry (who opposed slavery on principle, but also opposed freeing slaves).

After some more debate, the Second Amendment was edited so that the “slave patrols” in the south could continue. Furthermore, they could never be molested by federal troops because now they were the well-regulated militias of the Constitution. This is the same kind of bargain with the South, and for many of the same reasons, that led to the 3/5ths compromise.

Don’t take my word for it. Read the entire article. Hartmann reports; you decide.

Yet, they didn’t have guns in the “ancient” “Judeo-Christian” world.

This is just more David Barton (Glenn Beck‘s historian) bullshit: “The Constitution is divinely inspired, so if you fuck with it, you’re fucking with the word of God. Yadda, yadda, yadda.”

And, if you ask me Judge Nap (even tho’ you didn’t), using religion is the laziest argument you have ever used to cling to your guns.

Because: Hitler!!!
I wrote about this more extensively in Targeting the Gun Lobby ► An Aunty Em Editorial. However, as is so often the case, Jon Stewart said it best:

“I wish armed Jews in the ghetto could stop Hitler. But my feeling was, France couldn’t. And I’m pretty sure they had guns. Russia had kind of a lot of guns, and they couldn’t stop Hitler, until you factored in the wind chill.

It’s an awful lot to put on an oppressed minority, when it took the free world 5 to 6 years of all-out total war to stop that motherfucker. So let’s stop arguing these ‘what ifs’.”

Because: Hitler!!!

Time will tell. Who ever thought the 14th Amendment could be used to declare corporations people?

Judge! Slow the fuck down and take a chill pill. Nobody is fucking with your precious 2nd Amendment. Relax until you actually see the black helicopters on the horizon. Then you can shit yourself.

Gun Nuts will be biting their nails right down to the quick until then. NB: All of Judge Nap’s dire consequences are coming BEFORE any gun safety proposals are announced by the president. Judge Andy must be a mind reader.

It’s been almost 5 years since Heston died of complications from pneumonia. However, he was cremated. “Look, Ma: No “cold, dead hands.”

This was the Reich Wing Freak Out of the Week™. “Oh noes! The Socialist-in-Chief is going to use little children to shove through gun control and steal the Constitution!”

PoliticusUSA asks, “Remember When Bush Used Children as Political Props in Stem Cell Research Veto?” Media Matters for America points out that “[i]n 2002, President George W. Bush had children attend the signing of the No Child Left Behind Act.“

What say you about the “Supremacy Clause,” Judge Nap?

This is just another example of Judge Andy pushing stupid shit out to his brain-dead followers, knowing full well they’re not smart enough to know that States cannot nullify Federal law.

However, Judge Nap, you know perfectly well that Texas can’t do this and that NOBODY IS TRYING TO FUCK WITH YOUR PRECIOUS 2ND AMENDMENT!!! You’re just trying to get people riled up and it’s working. You’re pissing me off.

Be afraid!!! Be very afraid!!!

Judge Nap, along with a whole raft of dead-enders (pun intended), wants you to believe that Executive Orders are an extroidonary measure. Not so at all.

According to the article Sloppy Reporting Misleads the Public on Obama’s Executive Orders:
Executive
Orders are a president’s instructions to the staff at executive branch
agencies, defining how they are to implement the laws that already
exist. They are not laws themselves. No president can issue an Executive
Order to take your guns, or your money, make new laws, or to do
anything unconstitutional. And Obama is smart enough not to order
actions that won’t survive legal challenges.

Executive Orders are
constitutionally valid. The Constitution’s Article II, Section 1,
Clause 1 – The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America – gives the president that ability. Each
order’s preamble states his specific legal authority for the subject of
the order. Every president has issued Executive Orders. Governors and
mayors also issue Executive Orders to their staffs.
The orders are numbered consecutively. George Washington issued EO number 1. To date, President Obama has issued 146 Executive Orders, numbered 13489 through 13635. That’s an average of about 310 orders per president. President Franklin Roosevelt holds the record at 3,466, over more than three terms in office. Herbert Hoover – a Republican – is second with 1,011 in only one term. Ronald Reagan had 380 (two terms); George H.W. Bush 165 (one term); Bill Clinton 363 (two terms); and George W. Bush 290 (two terms).

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also said, “Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.” That would work as a more accurate motto for Fox “News” than “Fair and Balanced.”

In a bizarre coincidence “The Empire of Lies” is the new motto for Fox “News.”

We interrupt this action-packed episode of Judge Not to bring you this message from Media Matters for America:

Judge Nap is lying through his teeth in this clip. He and Leggy Meggy Kelly argue that President Obama is destroying 2nd Amendment . . . the day before President Obama made his announcement.

However, Judge Nap also says that Executive Orders are perfectly legal. Here’s the clip:

Somebody should remind this Oregon sheriff that he is obligated by the oath he took to uphold that law and all laws. Judge Nap is in the perfect position ton make that argument, but he’d rather just pass along the headline so that his brain-dead viewers consider this Oregon sheriff some kind of 2nd Amendment Hero.

I love how Judge Nap presents the “plain truth” about President Obama’s “gun plan” before President Obama presents his “gun plan.” That’s plenty “Fair and Balanced,” right?

Because: Hitler!!! Class dismissed.

Here we go again. Judge Nap knows full well this Wyoming sheriff would be going against his oath of office if he starts to pick and choose which laws he will, and which he won’t, enforce.

The tide is turning against the Gun Nuts and they know it. That’s why they become more unhinged by the day.

Tell me, Judge. What would you replace the drone program with? Boots on the ground?

You have the right to die by bullets.

What about it? You’ve already argued that Executive Action is legal. [See clip above]

How many lazy arguments against reasonable gun safety will you trot out, Judge?

We interrupt this action-packed episode of Judge Not to bring you another message from Media Matters for America:

More scare-mongering from Judge Nap. He knows damned well that the president’s Executive Order did nothing but CLARIFY the existing law. However, he wants his brain-dead viewers to believe the gummint is coming for your guns.

Here he is making this ridiculous argument:

And, here’s a rare instance of Leggy Meggy Kelly actually providing some “Fair and Balanced” facts to counter Fox “News” bullshit when she appeared that evening on the Loofah Lad Conspiracy Hour:

Fox News host Megyn Kelly agreed that such a requirement would be troubling if it existed, but explained that “it’s not true.” Kelly went on to say that Obama’s executive order only clarifies that “Obamacare does not prohibit the doctors from asking [patients] about guns” “if they want to ask.” She further noted that during the passage of health care reform, the NRA successfully lobbied to ensure the bill contained a provision “saying patients don’t have to answer if they are asked by their doctor whether they have a gun.”

Watch Leggy Meggy shoot down The Falafel King and, consequently, Judge Nap’s bullshit:

Wars never create a safer world . . . until they are over, and then only sometimes.

I think Judge Nap just has an orgasm.

That’s the whole purpose of the Constitution? Boy, you must think your brain-dead viewers are totally idiotic to believe that overly-simplistic excuse for you to continue to cling to your guns.

Like ACORN?

HAW!!! HAW!!! HAW!!! HAW!!!

This is totally flawed analogy for the trillion dollar coin, but Judge Nap is hoping that because it’s presented in cartoon form his brain-dead followers won’t notice. Besides, Judge, they said more than a week ago the trillion dollar coin idea is a non-starter. Why are you still flogging this dead horse?

Libertarians: Diligently ignoring any facts that put holes in their over-simplistic argument that there is no problem that an originalists version of the Constitution can’t solve.

The Reich Wing went nuts and insisted that King Obama was going to take your guns and force everyone to floss 3 times a day. The King is dead. Long live the King.

Not surprising to Liberals, Progressives, and politicians who have encountered some of these people at Teabagger rallies, the answer is a resounding YES.

In point of fact: Teabagger and Libertarian groups provide great cover for Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists. The more these groups deny it, the deeper they can infiltrate and influence these groups. I’m surprised that Judge Andy and Austin Peterson (who wrote the article to which The Judge links) are willing to confront this ugly fact.

That’s how the Judge Not week ends. Because: Hitler!!!

And, it turns out my latest hire’s name is neither Larry nor Robert. It’s Panjeet and he’s come up with what seems like a winning plan for outsourcing the whole operation. I’ll have to do some serious number crunching, but it might not be long before we move the Judge Not Desk to an unpronounceable country. One where they work for pennies on the dollar. For now Panjeet thinks he’s going to head up the operation. I’ll just let him keep thinking that until I fire his ass. That’s just between you, me, and the doorpost.