I don’t think I’ve seen the American Left in such nimble mental gymnastics, ever.
We just got through hearing from many on the Left, including President Obama, how, if we could save just one child, we should move to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. Oh, the bleeding hearts were on full display.
Then wham, we get hit with a terrorist attack, and they totally flip and tell us that we just have to learn to live with this sort of thing. This is the price of living in a free society. It’s enough to give me a mental whiplash, just to try to follow their arguments.
I heard it from Senator Dianne Feinstein, in her appearance with Congressman Pete King yesterday on Fox News Sunday. He was saying that the captured terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, should be questioned as an enemy combatant before being read his Miranda rights. Senator Feinstein was very much against that because he has his Miranda rights, you know. But then Chris Wallace asked her about the citizens in Boston and Watertown maybe wanting guns to help them protect themselves in their homes, and well, that was subject to government permission, in her mind. The government should decide which particular guns, if any, they should be able to have.
Let’s analyze this. Miranda rights. These are rights that were conferred by the Supreme Court in 1966. I was politically aware at the time, and I remember the outrage at this 5-4 decision. The outrage came because the court was conferring rights upon confessed criminals, saying that they shouldn’t be asked to confess without first being told that it would probably be smart not to confess. It wasn’t exactly worded that way, but that is the effect. Before Miranda, if a person was charged with a crime, the police could ask if they did it, and if they confessed, that could be used against them. After Miranda, they had to be first told they were entitled to an attorney and that they didn’t really have to say anything. It was highly controversial at the time, and I think it still should be. I never liked the idea, and I don’t think I ever will. Yes, the police shouldn’t torture someone or abuse them. But a little aggressiveness, a little intimidation of an accused criminal, and if they confess, well, I can’t see the harm in that.
How this applies to Senator Feinstein is that apparently she considers the Miranda rights of confessed criminals to be sacred. This is one of the marks of a free society, that we’re not too hard on criminals. However, the rights of law-abiding citizens to have means for protecting themselves, as is clearly enshrined in the Bill of Rights as the second of our basic rights, well, that is subject to governmental judgment. We should take away those rights if we can protect a single child. But the Supreme Court-invented Miranda rights of confessed criminals, we don’t tamper with those no matter how many lives it might save.
And we’ve been hearing the same from a number of people on the Left ever since this Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured. And this is the very policy that the Obama administration has followed. Take away the right of self-protection under the guise of saving the life of just one child. And that in spite of all the data that shows that society is safer the more we allow law-abiding citizens to carry weapons. But oh, those Miranda rights, they are sacred.
It’s sick. Literally sick.
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