More Poli-Sci Wankery

Guns don't kill people, Cookie Monster does.

Roy Edroso takes aim at a National Review writer who is outraged that only about 26% of the population is willing to take arms against the government.  In typical fashion, Edroso eviscerates the guy, but there is a larger point here, and it's one I've been trying to make for a few weeks now.

If your sum total experience in looking at government consists of your eighth grade civics class and watching Fox News, then you can make assumptions about government that are fairly odd.

As I wrote about people who believe that the second amendment guarantees all other amendments, this is a view of American governance that is starkly at odds with what we used to call "reality" but now we apparently call "liberal bias".

So, once more, with feeling: America's true exceptionalism lies in the extension of the idea of the rule of law.  The Greeks and Romans were the first to come up with a true rule of law, the British refined it, but it was America that first tried to create "fundamental law".  That is to say, a law upon which all other laws are based. Not an act of legislation, but an act of national creation.  Britain, for instance, whose representative government predates our, has no fundamental law.  Russia has one, but ignores it.

I've always felt poor James Madison doesn't get enough credit.  (Why is that bloodthirtsy racist Andrew Jackson on the currency and not Madison, I wonder, when I have too much time on my hands.)  The idea of structuring a government on certain principles that can stand the test of centuries is one of the most remarkable achievements in history.

But it works, because we have a firm tradition of the rule of law.  On the left, there were certain voices worried that Bush would cancel the 2004 or 2008 elections, but that idea was never plausible.  Take Bush v Gore.  That was a pretty awful act of judicial wankery, especially when they said, "And this establishes no precedent, so don't expect us to be consistent."  Still, Al Gore walked in front of the cameras and conceded in short order.  Because, unless your Andrew Ratbastard Jackson, when the Supreme Court rules, the issue is settled as a matter of law.

Which brings me back to guns and taking up arms against the government.

I can construct a scenario in my mind where I might take up arms against the government.  But if that happens, it will be because America is no longer functioning under the Constitution.  And I don't mean the Constitution as envisioned by the Tea Party - namely, anything I don't agree with is unconstitutional - but when we start canceling elections or locking up the leaders of the opposition party, then we might have recourse to arms.

But that is about as far out a hypothetical situation as you can find.  My Beloved Wife and All Around Graceful Excellence does not countenance guns in the house (and given Thing One's fondness for Nerf guns, that's likely a good thing).  Now in my hypothetical future where the government has called off elections and outlawed the opposition party, I would have difficulty finding a fire arm with which to take up arms against my oppressor.

Same goes for when the zombies come.

And both are about as likely.

With all the calls for civility, I think people are too hung up on politeness.  Which is not to say that politeness isn't important.  But the idea that you might have to take up arms because of health care reform or cap and trade or raising the top marginal tax rate...  No, sorry, you don't get to go there.  Civility would be nice, so would civics.

Our fundamental law creates a series of elections through which we are intended to conduct our political competition.  When you lose the election, you have to suck it up and come up with a better plan for the next one.  In 1860, when the Southern Democrats lost control of the White House, they decided to "exercise their second amendment rights" in a novel, illegal and treasonous way.  After that bloody mess, we've eschewed secession and rebellion and rightly condemned the fringe groups who have tried to violate the principles enshrined in the Constitution.

It would be nice if the people who insisted on reading the Constitution at the opening of the 112th Congress actually understood what is significant about it.