The Dichotomy of Freedoms

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Crimes, serious crimes, are committed on the regular by a few small groups of people and the media glorify the criminals by showing their names and faces on a 24-hour cycle. At least one recent mass shooter was partly motivated by this fleeting fame. Then, before all the bodies are even counted, they start in on guns. Even though most murders are committed with semi-automatic* pistols they tend to focus on “assault weapons”* or “weapons of war”. They want to limit the number of rounds per magazine — ignoring, of course, that reloading or having multiple guns makes that completely moot.

But when someone makes a suggestion that, perhaps, we should stop one group from coming here on the (somewhat) off chance they will be radical, somehow that is un-American. It’s racist even though they aren’t a race. The second amendment goes right out the window but the first — oh the first, we can’t discriminate against anyone based on religion! Often, however, we are told that we have to give up some of our rights (second, fourth, fifth, with a reasonable argument to be made regarding the third) for the greater good. We have to give up our privacy and our right against self incrimination, we have to give up our right to bear arms, etc, etc, for the greater good. “Your right to own a gun is outweighed by my right not to be shot” they say, as if this somehow means something.

Well, a non-citizen’s right to their religion is outweighed by my right not to be shot or blown up.

Of course the first amendment also goes right out the window if someone wants to draw their prophet or burn a Koran (but Piss Christ is totally okay). So the first amendment is only really valid for people the Statists like — and the second amendment is only valid for their body-guards. We have free speech unless it offends someone — oh, but you over there? You can be offended.

Because privilege, because racism, because Islamophobia.

Selective enforcement of our laws creates an unjust society. It doesn’t create justice, it just creates more injustice and makes people angry and bitter, and possibly dangerous. It creates racial strife — and so does this constant finger-wagging about race, as we can see by the current racial divisions in the US — it creates hatred. We can’t start slanting the playing field one way to make up for past sins — nobody alive today is responsible for those. We can’t have a set of rules for one group, and then a different set for another. That’s not what this is about. Also, the constitution isn’t a suicide pact. We’ve kept out groups of people before and we can and will do it again. There is nothing wrong with going about our business this way: we have no responsibility to anyone outside of our borders.

* If you do not know the difference between semi-automatic and automatic, do not attempt to debate guns. If you think “assault weapons” is an actual class of guns, do not attempt to debate guns.