Posted on 05/05/2015 12:31:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Watching the Right’s reaction to the Freddie Gray case, I’ve had a horrible nightmare: Aliens from a distant planet—big-government, statist aliens from Planet Obama, perhaps—have snatched millions of American conservatives and replaced them with Progressive pod people.
How else to explain the sudden, sweeping abandonment by my fellow conservatives of that most precious icon of our movement, the Constitution?
The Grey case is a constitutional fiasco. A guy walking down the street approached by the authorities because—literally—he “looked at them?” He’s pursued, frisked, found in the legal possession of a weapon (a pocketknife) and is arrested? No crime? No theoretical charge of a crime?
Then he’s shackled, laid on the floor of a police van on his stomach—unsecured and in violation of police rules—and bounced around the city for hours, while being repeatedly denied requested medical treatment.
The Police Can’t Just Grab People
Freddie Gray was an American citizen who started his day having not committed a crime, and ended the day with fatal injuries sustained while in custody of the government. And Republicans are defending…the government? Who are you, and what have you done with my conservatives?
Real conservatives—my Tea Party friends and limited-government activists—understand that the Constitution is a document of “negative rights.” An officer of the government sees you and decides he wants to search you, or grab you, take your stuff, or even kill you. Can he? For most of the history of mankind, the answer was “Shut up, peon, and get back in your cell!”
Our founders committed a truly revolutionary act when they wrote a Constitution that is a document of “No.” It tells agents of the government, “No, you can’t.” It doesn’t matter if the citizen is a pillar of the community or a punk. He’s still an American, so hands off!
You Don’t Need to Be Good to Get Rights
But why am I having to explain this to the Right? I learned all this from you. You explained to me that gun ownership has nothing to do with the question “do you need a gun?” or “are you a good enough person to be allowed to own a gun?”
We wear “What Part Of ‘Shall Make No Law’ Don’t You Understand?” t-shirts to remind big-government liberals that, whether they like guns or not, we have constitutional rights they can’t touch. You explained to me that the Obama administration’s assault on Tea Party groups—using the Internal Revenue Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the Federal Bureau Investigation, etc. to intimidate activists during an election cycle—was precisely the sort of government thuggery the founders feared. Even though the IRS has the power to audit citizens, laws and institutions must check that power in the name of citizens’ rights.
But now you’re telling me that you support cops who arrested a guy legally in possession of a weapon, and you’re on the side of “Lois Lerner” law enforcement? Who are you people? Whoever you are, you definitely aren’t conservatives.
Alleged “conservatives” making their angry, foamy-mouthed defense of the Baltimore police tell me that what I don’t understand is that Gray is “different.” He’s “different” because he’s a known drug dealer, not a good, upstanding citizen.
To which I reply: Do you think President Obama thinks you “bitter clingers” are good citizens? Do you think he believes opponents of same-sex marriage, or businesses that don’t want to pay for abortions, or skeptics of climate change are good citizens?
Conservatives taught me that the founders understood we needed the Constitution specifically to protect the rights of Americans the government considered “bad.” When conservatives take the position that some citizens are so “bad” that the government should be free to ignore their constitutional rights, they are kicking the door wide open for a Hillary Clinton to use the power of the White House to do just that to Americans she thinks are “bad.”
No real conservative would support such a flawed, unconstitutional view of the relationship between the citizen and the state. Government agents free to kill unarmed Americans—and have the support of conservatives while they do it—is simply unimaginable.
So I’m left with only one possible conclusion: RUN AWAY! THE POD PEOPLE ARE COMING!
-- Michael Graham is a radio talk show host in Atlanta, Georgia.
[rolls eyes]
Gray had been arrested about 18 times or more and had dealt heroin. I am glad he is gone.
What’s you solution? Anarchy?
As others have pointed out the whole spine injury thing is without public documentation at this time. Alleged to be 80%, not complete, he didn’t look too good going into the Paddy(is that racis’?) Wagon. A crushed trachea at the end of the trip is problematic though.
Interesting argument, though in spite (and because) of its foundation on things that just aren't so.
First off, you say illegal carry weapon, but the Second Amendment says:A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Note that there's nothing in there as to what sort of arms; it can and does cover everything from knives to field artillery.
You assert that purchasing drugs is illegal… while conveniently ignoring the fact that the only way for this to be true is to hold Wickard as a good interpretation of the Commerce Clause. Ironically, such an opinion is to relegate the several states to the position of conquered
as such an assertion of internal control of commerce via the commerce clause
would necessarily apply to foreign nations as well because it is literally the same clause (commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes
) and such an assertion would be either a declaration of war or imposition of will upon the conquered.
So, given that you give the weight of law to things that ought not be, how do you justify the exercise of police force here?
The author is confusing liberaltarianism with conservatism.
So the “as young people, our time is now” girl is justified because “certain” conservatives allegedly “love big-government police unions”? Do said unions direct the actions of police officers in all cases?
All liber(al)tarians think they’re conservatives.
I can't speak for anyone but me, but I neither know enough nor fully trust the facts I've heard so far as to make an informed decision. As such, I firmly resist the temptation to "taking sides" about it.
I've discussed the rush to judgement phenomenon before, and have to reiterate that people should exercise more caution and skepticism before turning every single circumstance into a partisan "fight".
Most conservatives aren’t defending Freddie Gray because they don’t know what actually happened yet. Rumors and sketchy charges from that State’s Attorney don’t add up to a convincing body of evidence for either side of the confrontation.
A better question is why is this writer putting out such a pompous article when we still don’t have a great deal of evidence to consider.
What a moronic statement. Freddie was in one of the prime drug trafficking areas on East Coast. He ran from police because he was dirty and dealing again. Based on toxicology reports, he swallowed the heroin he possessed. So, duh, the police wanted to find a way to apprehend and question the drug-dealing piece of garbage. That is called good police work.
False dilemma.
My thoughts exactly. I don’t have the facts. Why speak to something?
Ingesting heroin might have been the reason he was bouncing off the walls of the van, fell and broke his own neck. Let's see the prosecution prove otherwise.
He’s pursued?
Maybe I don’t know enough specifics of this case. But that statement kinda leaps out at me. What action led to this “pursuit”. Fleeing?
If this can be distilled down to holding the liberals responsible for the society they are guilty of creating per Tacitus’ observation, then that would be most sensible.
That, though, would need to take into account the admonitions of the Founding Fathers, who warned us that religion and morality (including the traditional family) have to be the “indispensable supports” of society (per Washington) and that the immoral and irreligious cannot be governed by (but can be punished by) the Constitution (per John Adams).
A question cannot be a false dilemma in and of itself, especially a Boolean one (yes/no answer). Leaving the question unanswered still begs for its answer.
Michael Graham has been a great conservative for as long as I heard him on the air when he was a Boston talk-show host.
He never ONCE sounded like a RINO, neither on the air, nor in his newspaper columns.
I was sorry to see him go, and I would certainly seriously consider any point that he would care to make on pretty much any political subject.
Maybe you disagree with his conclusion on this matter, but he is by no means a RINO.
Because we wait until we have all of the facts before making judgements? Just a thought.
Backing Buchanan (of the Nixon RINO crowd) is about as RINO as one gets.
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