Posted on 02/27/2018 8:01:40 AM PST by Kaslin
CNN's town hall political takedown of the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment -- in response to the tragic murders at a Florida school -- has been wrongly described by some conservatives as an Orwellian Two Minutes Hate.
So, those who called it CNN's Two Minutes Hate should publicly admit how wrong they were.
Because it went on for much longer than two minutes, didn't it?
It went on and on and on, and from the earliest moments it became clear that this wasn't a reasonable discussion about complicated policy and the Bill of Rights.
This was all about confrontation, drama and exhorting a crowd that wants politicians to "do something" about guns. And so, the CNN many minutes of Second Amendment hate was nothing more than a campaign rally for the Democratic Party.
Others might say otherwise, but it wouldn't be the first time others would be wrong. This was about stoking politics, anger, frustration and fear, and weaponizing it to help Democrats "do something" to the Constitution.
A student likened Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican, to mass murder suspect Nikolas Cruz for accepting campaign donations from the National Rifle Association. The crowd jeered at Rubio. He looked like a trapped forest creature. And they loved it.
And another star of the show was Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, in full uniform.
Israel is a politician, a Democrat who runs for election, and he received a roar from the crowd when he lashed out at NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch.
What bothered him was the NRA bringing up the aggravating fact that there had been repeated and well-documented failures of law enforcement -- from the FBI to the locals -- that could have stopped Cruz.
"You just told this group of people that you're standing up for them," he said. "You are not standing up for them until you say, 'I want less weapons.'"
The crowd cheered.
"You will get this done," Sheriff Israel told them. "Vote in people who feel the same way you do."
They cheered some more.
What the public didn't know at the time of Israel's speechifying was that on the day of the shooting, a Broward deputy sheriff was stationed at the school.
When the shooting began, Israel's armed deputy hid outside in safety and remained there.
But if the good sheriff -- a political cat -- had explained that business about his frightened deputy, he'd have ruined the show. So he kept his mouth shut.
The CNN event was compelling TV. But raw emotion is always compelling on the screen.
What TV can't handle is context, or complicated, layered arguments. And explaining how policy works its way through a republic, and how the system is designed to restrain passion, to diffuse it -- all that is death to TV.
Irritated TV news executives would roll their eyes and sigh, and mouth the word "boring" if asked to spend equal time explaining to civics-deprived Americans how their republic was set up years ago.
It was set up to restrain the passions of its people, and was made inefficient by design in order to protect individual liberty.
Our system wasn't designed to "do something" quickly. But those who won't "do something" quickly with the Second Amendment are cast as agents of evil in all this.
TV isn't about restraint. It's all about the immediate. It's all about passion, emotion, drama, anger, frustration and tears, because that is what TV does well, selling it all, triggering it all, tears especially, and selling some more.
TV does this all exceedingly well with dramatic serial fiction, and through sports like the Winter Olympics, and that CNN event.
The grief of the survivors is legitimate. What could be more legitimately emotional than a gathering of students and their parents after 17 people were shot down by a madman with an AR-15 rifle?
If you weren't moved by the parents and the students and their fear and anger, then you don't have a heart. As a parent, I was certainly moved. And if you weren't, then I'm sorry for you.
But the heart doesn't make policy. And speaking from the heart alone isn't the wisest thing to do when moving quickly to "do something" to the Bill of Rights.
There are things that can be done, including hardening the soft targets of suburban schools and using state legislative measures, including temporary gun violence restraining orders to take guns away from threats like Nikolas Cruz. Yet even that takes time.
As far as TV goes, CNN's many minutes of hate on the Second Amendment was dramatic. It pushed the right Democratic political buttons. But it will also echo throughout the red states, and Democratic officeholders in those states may face blowback at the polls.
A day after the CNN event, an amazing thing happened. The news broke about how that armed deputy stationed at the school had failed to act, and later news sources suggested three other deputies at the school did not enter during the shooting. Sheriff Israel had to say something.
"I'm devastated. Sick to my stomach. There are no words," he said of the deputy who avoided danger that day. "These families lost their children. We lost coaches. I've been to the funerals. ... It's just -- there are no words."
No words, sir? No words?
Of course not. Yet you had plenty of words at that CNN event, where you played the demagogue in front of a crowd of grieving Americans.
The framers of the Constitution were worried about people just like you. It's why the Bill of Rights is there.
Benito Mussolini vowed to have “the trains run on time” after he came to power.
America isn’t about Fascist-style efficiency. Its about freedom.
Lousy sheriff disapproves of guns yet won’t allow his cops to save children’s lives at school shooting. POS!
CNN should be warned that loss of 1st Amendment will quickly precipitate the repeal of the 1st Amendment.
CNN the network for small minds and shallow people.
That CNN town hall was an absolute joke, an absolute joke for what was allegedly to he a serious discussion of policies and actions to prevent school shootings.
He spouts the never supported conclusions of Leftists in the media & Academia--obviously so brainwashed he is unaware that he has no intelligent argument for the ex cathedra babble.
Compare the incompetent Sheriff's rant against a well armed citizenry, with George Washington's call for a well-armed citizenry:
By contrast--stark contrast--note how George Washington saw the underlying concepts:
From Chapter Two of the Conservative Debate Handbook:
A few years earlier, at the conclusion of the War, General Washington had put his thoughts on the Common Defence into a May 2, 1783 draft to Alexander Hamilton, entitled Sentiments On A Peace Establishment:
...to prove ...the Policy and expediency of resting the protection of the Country on a respectable and well established Militia, we might not only shew the propriety ...from our peculiar local situation, but we might have recourse to the Histories of Greece and Rome in their most virtuous and Patriotic ages.... we might see, with admiration, the Freedom and Independence of Switzerland supported for Centuries, in the midst of powerful and jealous neighbors, by means of a hardy and well organized Militia. ...
It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at a Short Notice...
The following month, June 8, 1783, Washington reported to the States, in surrendering the solemn trust of his command: The Militia of this Country must be considered as the Palladium of our security, and the first effectual resort in case of hostility...
Washington's reference to the Swiss was quite revealing. Trained, as school boys, in the safe, correct and deadly accurate use of arms, the Swiss had and have managed to maintain an armed neutrality for generations amidst their more warlike, but less war efficient neighbors. While world travelers have reported for generations that Switzerland, where every household has its own military grade weapons, has the lowest crime rate in Europe. The Swiss have also managed to preserve the diverse rights of their 22 Cantons (or States) better than any other Federation in the world.
Yet perhaps the single most important reason why Washington wanted America to adopt the Swiss system, is that it teaches the youth--in the most immediate and compelling manner--the importance of that level of personal responsibility on which all of our other institutions are based. It gives youth a sense of purpose, importance and self-worth, for which all the words expended by "Liberal" theorists, from the Creation to this day, are no substitute.
“You are not standing up for them until you say, ‘I want less weapons.’”
what a moron; he can’t even speak properly...should be ‘I want fewer weapons’...
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