"Why do you need to have that?" - never a question an Elected Official should ask of a Citizen - Granite Grok

“Why do you need to have that?” – never a question an Elected Official should ask of a Citizen

Commerce Claws the rest of the Constitution?That question is reserved for parents talking to their children (either in a pique generated by the kids or in trying to teach them to think about the whys and wherefores) or to a boss questioning how a purchase is going to further the goals of that company (we’ll come back to both in a bit – the parent teaching a child to think or in setting limits or talking about limits).  My favorite (and most important) political question that I keep asking is “What is the Proper Role of Government?”.  While the issue at hand is gun control, the question really is meant to be asked at a higher level.  During this highly contested topic, all I hear from those that would take yet another slice of Freedom away from Citizes is “You don’t need that….I have no idea why anyone needs that” when talking about the kinds of weapons they do not deem appropriate for Joe and Jane Sixpack.  Now when a pundit or an ordinary citizen decides to “chastise” a gun owner over the issue of wanting or possessing a modern sporting rifle, that’s fine.

My beef is in hearing that from Constitutionally inept Progressives (or, really, wish to dispose of the Constitution altogether) who are elected officials keep asking “why do you NEED that?“.  I don’t hear them say that to those that would require more services from government, do I?  I don’t hear them say that to those that require more tax money from government, do I?  But yet, I do hear that when normal citizens that are pulling the wagon for the rest of Society start to say “why are you trying to take yet something more away from me?”  And those Politicians’ response seems to always be to belittle those that disagree with their “proper notions”  to the point ranging from “plain dumb” to “flat out evil”.

Who DO THEY THINK THEY ARE?  Is it the Proper Role of Government (and those that we elect to govern) to tell us what our Needs are?  That we, the Citizens, should be limited to needs?  What about Freedom – the ability to choose for ourselves what is best?  And in this area, is it the Proper of Elected to decide what is a Need and limit us to just that?  And in doing so, is it really in the scope of their responsibility to pre-judge us all to be guilty – and then we have to go on bended knee to plea of innocence?

I think not – and either does uber-Liberal-turned-Conservative David Mamet:

President Obama, in his reelection campaign, referred frequently to the “needs” of himself and his opponent, alleging that each has more money than he “needs.”

But where in the Constitution is it written that the Government is in charge of determining “needs”? And note that the president did not say “I have more money than I need,” but “You and I have more than we need.” Who elected him to speak for another citizen?

Indeed.  A Communist Government acts that way.  A Socialist Government acts that way.  A Government that is being turning into a Communitarian one (as Van Jones says of Obama, who has said he would fundamentally transform America).  In any of those models, a few determine that the wants of the many come before the needs of the few – a selfish society indeed.  And totalitarian.

Modern sporting rifles are just a symptom of this evilness coming into a society that was founded to have the Individual be pre-eminent in a voluntary society.  We see an encroaching government pushing aside what used to be a wide Civil Society instead of keeping within its bounds (just as the Founding believed very well could happen).

The symptom and the disease is a lack of following that radical document, the US Constitution, and the restrictions of checks and balances contained in it.  It isn’t just an adherence to the letter of the Constitution but an internal sense of responsibility to the spirit of the Constitution that we are now seeing.  Progressives believe that it is just a blueprint for how Government should run – and that times may call for “pragmatic” overrides as “the Founders could never have foreseen this coming”.  And that is where they are complete wrong and off on the wrong tangent (mostly, on purpose) as it is not just a blueprint of procedure but a treatise on how to manage the craven human nature of those that would rule versus govern.  Like what we are seeing now.

Listen to Piers Morgan and two elected officials who have this mindset.  Over and over again, this symptom is clearly on display: “I don’t know why you need this”  and “How many do you need?”.  They miss the important principle first – how does any action that I bring violate the precepts of the Constitution?

 Bonus: I’m not sure which is funnier, the Congresswoman making the case AGAINST women in combat or (perhaps more sadly) her utter ignorance / cluelessness of the weaponry needed by a front line combat soldier.

I did note, from a professional journalist, what I believe to be an intentional “slip of the tongue:

“Murder, er kill her attacker”

Really, Piers?  Always casting the other side of the argument as evil?  Sounds like your British side has a wide French swath in it – you and NH Democrat Majority Leader Stephen “Run Away” Shurtleff have much in common.

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