Posted on 04/17/2015 11:48:06 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Ted Cruz thinks Americans should arm themselves against "tyranny," and Lindsey Graham thinks that's crazy.
As incredible as it sounds, there’s an argument going on right now between two Republican senators (and, potentially, two Republican candidates for the presidency) over whether the American citizenry should be ready to fight a war against the federal government. The two senators in question are Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, and they can’t seem to agree whether the Second Amendment serves as bulwark against government “tyranny.”
It all started with a fundraising email Cruz sent making the case that “The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution isn’t for just protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny — for the protection of liberty.” TPM’s Sahil Kapur asked Graham what he thought of his Texan colleague’s view of the Second Amendment, and the South Carolina senator was not impressed. He even invoked the Civil War, which should make Cruz’s people plenty upset. “Well, we tried that once in South Carolina,” Graham said. “I wouldn’t go down that road again.”
This view of gun rights that casts personal firearm ownership as a check on the abuses of government doesn’t make a great deal of practical sense, and it betrays a lack of faith in our democratic institutions. But it’s become increasingly popular among high-level Republican officials who quite literally scare up votes by telling voters they’re right to keep their Glocks cocked just in case the feds come for them. Iowa’s new Republican senator Joni Ernst famously remarked that she supports the right to carry firearms to defend against “the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.”
The obvious question raised by statements like those from Cruz and Ernst is: when does the shooting start? What is the minimum threshold for government “tyranny” that justifies an armed response from the citizenry? In 2014, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy was ready to start a shooting war with the feds to defend his illegal grazing practices, and he garnered the support of top-level Republican officials (they only abandoned him after he started wondering aloud whether black people would be better off as slaves).
It’s an important question because Republicans and conservatives – Ted Cruz included – tend to throw around terms like “tyranny” sort of haphazardly when criticizing policies and politicians they disagree with.
In May 2013, Cruz spoke at a press conference arranged by then-Rep. Michele Bachmann (remember her?) to vent rage at the IRS over its targeting of Tea Party-aligned non-profit groups. Cruz quoted Thomas Jefferson to suggest that the IRS scandal (along with Benghazi and Obamacare and other stuff) was a harbinger of “tyranny” from the federal government:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Last January, Cruz said Barack Obama was running the country like a dictator because of his executive orders on immigration and the administration’s delay of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate. “There are countries on this globe where that is how the law works,” Cruz said. “You look at corrupt countries where the rule of law is meaningless, where dictators are in power and they have things they call law. But what does law mean?”
Later that same month he wrote a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed suggesting that Obama’s “lawlessness” was a threat to personal liberty:
That would be wrong—and it is the Obama precedent that is opening the door for future lawlessness. As Montesquieu knew, an imperial presidency threatens the liberty of every citizen. Because when a president can pick and choose which laws to follow and which to ignore, he is no longer a president.
I don’t doubt that Cruz would argue strongly against an armed response to Obama’s immigration orders and tweaks to Obamacare. But at the same time, he’s the one bringing up government “tyranny” and “lawlessness,” and he’s the one bringing up the need to arm oneself in order to preserve one’s liberty. So he should be the one to explain where those two concepts intersect, and when an armed citizen would be justified in committing violence against the government.
From the charged atmosphere of politics, I can smell fear at the house of Salon.
Smells like victory.
5.56mm
I believe that was actually Michael Moore disdaining Heston in his docucrap “Bowling for Columbine”, in which he made Heston (using clever camera angles) look like he’s walking away from Moore and ignoring him, when he actually did not. Also, Moore falsely showed Heston giving his “from my cold dead hands” speech at the NRA convention in Denver shortly after the murders in Littleton.
Moore also tried ambushing the late Dick Clark into being at least somewhat responsible for the boy who shot a girl at school with a gun taken from a crackhouse, as the boy’s mother worked at the American Bandstand restaurant chain as a waitress. Many, many cowardly falsehoods were in this lame excuse for a movie.
Obama's frightening executive overreach: When a president encourages tyranny and the only workable response is armed insurrection.
You mean, like George Washington?
There’s a difference in “encouraging” and “not ruling out against any foreseeable or unforeseeable situation or event that may occur”. We need to be prepared, and we do have the right, for our survival as individuals and as a nation.
Under the 2nd Amendment, politicians are the only hunt with no bag limit.
When would an American citizen be “justified”? Justified by whom— the lib media?
Ask the Japanese AMERICANs who were incarcerated, and their titled.... TITLED lands seized and never returned— because the federal government decided they should be place in concentration camps because of the threat of a 5th column.
Those lands, as a matter of public record and fact— were never returned.
There is a standard— would that meet Salon’s “justified”?
Yes, until they had the guns to point at the “revolt”.
Communists love to murder the masses. It was a critical part of the official testimony by FBI informant who infiltrated the Weather Underground.
Salon is composed of hundreds of Bill Ayers red diaper dope babies.
The Democrats of those days are long gone.
Moore is a piece of garbage.
But Clooney tastelessly joked, “Charlton Heston announced ‘again’ today that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s.” The needlessly cruel quip was delivered at a National Board of Review film awards ceremony honoring the loudmouthed actor. When called on about the stupid comment, Clooney dismissed any opportunity to apologize. “I don’t care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association. He deserves whatever anyone says about him
Salon needs to do just the bare minimum of research, and it will find its argument holds no water.
Now Cruz know how to provoke the press so they reveal themselves as the screaming commie pant wetters they are.
Teds Just another of Us FIREBRANDS!....
And I didn’t know about the Dick Clark thing. As if I needed more reason to hate his guts and celebrate his imminent heart attack.
Oh man. I just plotzed a little.
And yet the lefts’ heroes, Che and Fidel needed guns to overthrow the horrible American backed government. /sarcasm
They are “Useful idiots” without the common sense or even the slight knowledge of history or acceptance of the true nature of man needed to fear it.
To them the bible is a book of fairy tales.
To me the bible contains a basic very basic principle of truth of mans nature in that the first man born of a woman was a murderer.
The evil of multitudes of men with evil hearts has always existed and, has always brought a need of defensive strategy for those who seek love and peace in the nature of the true God.
This nation was built on that principle.
Our Founding Fathers knew that we would one day need firearms to protect ourselves from a government gone wild with abuse of the citizenry. And every day it seems more apparent that their wisdom was prophetic.
Firearms are liberty’s teeth, meant to keep tyrants at bay.
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