The world has changed, and now many — if not most — Americans have become so partisan that we can no longer even hear or read the same words and walk away with the same understanding of their meaning.
For example, President Barack Obama’s comments this week on gun control:
“You hear some of these quotes: ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government.’ ‘We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away,’ Obama said. “Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.â€
What does that mean to you?
To me, it says that President Obama has every intention of working within our democratic (small “d”) system, including trying to convince Congress of the need for gun reforms, to achieve the results he wants.
Not to conservatives.
To conservatives, apparently, President Obama’s words mean exactly the opposite.
Enter radical conservative Ann Althouse:
As a lawprof, I read that to mean that he is not constrained. He’s juggling a few ideas, but what he’s getting at is: The Founders put into place a system that would be populated by elected officials, who are to act for the sake of the people and as the people want. If what the people want our government to do is control guns, then it is within the power of government to do it.
That’s the constitutional argument he has in mind. It’s an idea of constitutional government as a political system, within which rights are only another manifestation of what the people want. And, in the ultimate scary twist on the idea of rights: Government is not to be regarded as in need of limits, because the government is us. Anything we — the government — want to do is never tyranny, but freedom.
And yes, this is a law professor. Regular readers may remember I’ve written about Ann Althouse before, especially her inhumane response to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s blood clot.
Althouse is a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, just as Dr. Ben Carson is a a neurosurgeon and the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. Smart, but totally existing in a different world.
What’s sad is Althuse has a huge following, of perhaps not-so-smart readers.
Take a look at some of their comments on Althouse’s post claiming Obama didn’t say what he said:
- The Constitution expresses limits on the power of government. Obama is saying that the government can do anything it wants because we elected the 535 members of Congress and the President/Vice President (which make up a miniscule fraction of the government as a whole). In short, he’s saying there are no limits on government. That is the rhetoric of a dictator.
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We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away,’ Obama saidUh, nobody, anywhere, ever, said this.
What a pathetic piece of shit this man is.
- He opens his mouth and Uncle Saul (or is it Chairman Mao?) always comes out.Translation:
I am constrained by this system of checks and balances those WHITE MEN put in place to frustrate me, personally, from achieving my goals of turning this into a People’s Paradise with Me as your All-Knowing, All-Wonderful Messiah For Life.
- I do not see democrats doing ONE damn thing to prevent criminals and felons from obtaining guns. The democrats are obsessed with chipping away at the second amendment — one crisis at a time.
Law abiding citizens hardest hit. - I’m not sure that Ann has captured the fact that the Dear Leader was making his typical sales pitch. His pitch was, “Look, you can trust me and my pinko pals, because we are constrained by the fact that you can toss us out if we abuse this power we want you to give us”.”…….oh, and I promise to call y’all in the morning after we bone you in your rosy plump rumps”.
Hitler pretty much made the same pitch. It’s odd how goofy we are as a society when we so quickly forget how tyrants acquired, then abused AND kept their powers through elections. I’m sure that as long as Jimma is around to certify the results, none of us has a single thing about which to worry our little shaggy sheep heads.
- thankfully, the constitution also limits this turkey to two terms.I wager that a trial balloon will be floated in regard to Obama seeking a third term. It will be suggested. You watch.
- This is the Marxist argument that Obama is making…Â He has the ethics and soul of a dictator. The only thing keeping him in check are our traditions and the vestiges of our laws.
And on and on and on.
So, what do you think? Have we become so different we are no longer speaking the same language?