Of Constitutions, Bibles, and Morons

Even for a newspaper with a history of printing op-ed pieces offensive to the intelligence of the average citizen, the Wall Street Journal has outdone itself today by publishing the intellectual excrement of John Bartels et al., former administrators for the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Bartels et al. are furious at the prospect of the legalization of the growth, distribution, sale, and use of marijuana in California.  They’re not furious because they are personally opposed to the use of marijuana (of course not), but rather because the legalization of marijuana in California would create a conflict between state and federal law concerning marijuana.

Oh lordy, that sounds like trouble.  Is this like what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?  Will the universe explode?  Definitely not, according to Bartels et al.  Rather, it will turn out that that the immovable object, California law, will be trampled over by the unstoppable force of federal law, because, again, according to Bartels et al., the Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause” trumps anything that those crime-loving Californians might legislate.  You know, treaties and such oblige the U.S. to punish the personal growth and use of marijuana.  What treaties?  Who knows? Bartels et al. are doling out information only in doses that our pot-addled brains can handle.

I have to assume that if Bartels et al. knew of a treaty prohibiting us from saying praying to God to punish pot-smokers, they would exhibit the same zeal in using the Supremacy Clause to suppress our First Amendment free speech and religion rights that they are currently employing to suppress our Ninth and Tenth Amendment rights to be free from inane federal interference.  They are just on the side of the Law.  They are like Kevin Costner in The Untouchables.  They probably have a bunch of fat blunts at home right now just waiting for those pesky treaties to expire.

On a serious note, the lamentably poor Constitutional scholarship of Bartels et al. would benefit from examining the tone of moderation in the Supreme Court’s response to a case very close to the present dispute.  In Gonzales vs. Raich, the Court points out that strict construction of arcane and obsolete sections of the Constitution – such as the Commerce Clause – is not helpful to the legislative process, and that the true power to govern the proper regulation of commerce lies with the people via the ballot box.  Perhaps we should regulate marijuana the same way?  And start at a local level, allow some state to function as a test zone?

You see, we could argue all day about what this section or that section of the Constitution means, and which trumps which, and when states’ rights apply and when they don’t.  Or we could just admit that we all twist the Constitution to our own purposes, and that the issue here isn’t the Constitution, but rather that I’m in favor of civil rights and that Bartels et al. are a bunch of violent-by-proxy evangelists bent on using the law of the land as a club to beat anyone who opposes their puritanical code of personal morality.

Once we see the discourse on this rational level, we can ask what are the real issues.  That’s really a question for Californians, since the exceptional status of marijuana in California will certainly affect a drug tourism industry.  But even the rest of us can consider such questions as “Is marijuana harmful?” or “What is the proper extent of governmental regulation of drug use?”

My guess is that Bartels et al. are perfectly cognizant of the relative importance of these issues, but realize that their fear-driven perspective on marijuana is becoming increasingly lonely.  Well, you have to admire a group that will do absolutely anything to get what they want.

Note: I realize that this turns some of my previous arguments in defense of the right to keep and bear arms on their head.  The ignorant raving of this bunch of Cro-Magnons has opened my eyes.  I shall endeavor to confine my future arguments in defense of an expanded right to keep and bear arms to practical considerations and the same local approach that I would here advocate for marijuana.  The salient practical considerations concerning firearms is that they are the ultimate check on an increasingly tyrannical federal power.  See the Federalist 46.

A Slap in the Face to the Virile Virtues

In a delectable twist on the Second Amendment, George Grier was recently arrested for shooting into the grass on his own lawn with an AK-47.  Best of all, Mr. Grier did so in an effort to dissuade twenty or so aggressive and potentially violent young men to leave his property.  Needless to say, he had not just concluded a tea party with them; they were there uninvited and illegally.

The lawyers (casuists) have already analyzed this one and suggested that a law regulating the defense of one’s own property in New York may apply here.  In summary, the law is that you may only use physical force of the invader uses physical force.  So if Hannibal Lecter is sitting in a chair looking at child pornography next to your playpen and two-year-old son, you’re to be very, very eloquent with him.  I’m inclined to think that this sort of b—s— has exposed a law violating the Fifth Amendment as well as the Second.

It’s easy, of course, to rant in this haven’t-we-lost-all-common-sense kind of way, and so to make things difficult, I must acknowledge the counter-argument, which is more difficult to make, but actually even more common sense.  To wit, as a society advances in technology, wealth, and “enlightened” (i.e. humanistic) values, it increasingly deprecates the use of force and the virile virtues – courage, independence, economy – in favor of other values – cooperativeness, social facility, wealth.  This is natural, inevitable, and perhaps not even wrong.  And so in a case like this, yes, it is expected that a good citizen will not create a ruckus by firing his gun, but rather wait for the police to arrive and resolve the situation.  It’s almost an example of specialization of labor, that hallmark of advancement.

So what is it that we really object to, really find repugnant about this situation?  It’s that a society preaches the manly virtues, enshrines them in its most sacred text, and tells its citizens that they have certain rights.  Then, when in an extreme situation, when a citizen resorts to his rights in desperation, the burden falls on him to explain his reactions to a society that has arrested him on what are almost by definition trumped-up charges.  It doesn’t matter whether George Grier is found guilty of reckless endangerment.  For some years to come, he’ll be footing the bills for the lawyers that are necessary to defend one’s actions through the arcana and ritual that protect our lawmakers from their citizens – unless the heroic pillars of the First or Second Amendments stands up.  My guess is that the ACLU will not be particularly interested in this man’s civil rights.

On Gun Control – Arguments I’ve Made a Thousand Times, Better

Kaili Joy Gray has stated, more eloquently than I ever have, could, or will, a case for gun rights.  I would recommend that anyone read this, if for no other reason, than because it is an example of clear, intellectually honest thought, which is something that modern political discourse dosen’t see much.

Read the essay!

That said, I am a proponent of gun rights.  My sole criticism of Ms. Gray’s essay is that it saves the most important, most interesting point for last, and then barely develops it.

What is this point?  It is simply that the Second Amendment of the Constitution is the right of revolution.  It is the right of the people, as a whole, to violently dispose of a government that has proven itself oppressive.  The thought of the Founders was incubated in the Revolution, and they intended that future generations should have the same ability and strength that they did.

Of course, the question is perhaps not what the Founders thought or wanted, but what the Constitution says, and whether it makes sense.  Consider the abuses our government daily heaps upon us.  It seems entirely possible that we are on an irreversible course toward technocratic absolutism.  Sure, we still (sort of) have free speech, and the right to object.  But the Second Amendment is like a nuclear option.  When everything else fails, when the government refuses to listen, the sound of gunshots cannot be ignored.  Sic semper tyrannis.

I should be clear that I am not endorsing the right of violently-inclined minorities to voice individual grievances with bloodshed.  Rather, I am endorsing the right of the overwhelming majority of the people, acting collectively, to depose unjust rulers who have effectively stolen power from the people.

Why can't we own these?

For example, the recent bailouts of financial companies and auto companies, multiplied many times and repeated over and over again, would be a reasonable casus belli; in these decisions, unlike in the recent healthcare debate that has so exercised the “tea party”, Democrats and Republicans acted in unified incompetence and injustice, and will suffer no electoral punishment for their actions.  And (at least in my impression) vastly more Americans of all political stripes opposed the bailout legislation.  In short, what we have here is not one half of America claiming that the other half is acting on behalf of those in power and against its own interests, but rather, a tiny and powerful elite – Congressmen, lobbyists, and Wall Street bankers – acting in unison to rob the entire rest of America.