In the wake of multiple tragic shootings, Conservative right-wingers have come up with a lot of ideas about how to solve these problems. Arming teachers, increasing gun violation prison sentences and banning violent videogames are just some of the bright ideas their politicians have come up with.
But while survivalists are clinging to their guns in fear that the sleeper cell terrorist in the White House is going to take them away, they have missed the whole point as to why the Second Amendment exists in the first place. For them, the possability of FEMA death camps forcing everyone to gay marry, or something like that, is very real and their civil liberties are at stake. In reality, their civil liberties have already been destroyed from under their noses, yet no one is crying fowl.
Search warrants have been replaced with police forced entries. What’s their probable cause? In many cases, they don’t need any probable cause. All they need to do is say you and your case is a matter of national security and your civil liberties and due process fly out the window.
In a way, the fears and paranoia of President Barack Obama taking away civil liberties turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only problem is, conservative gun nuts were worried about the wrong rights.
The Second Amendment was created as a way for the colonists to prevent the British from taking away their basic civil liberties like the right to a fair trial. Conservatives with 20 machine guns kind of have the right idea, but for the wrong reasons. As Bill Maher put it, having all these guns with no rights to use the guns to maintain those rights is “like a strip club with a million bouncers and no strippers!”
While Billy Bob was armed to the teeth waiting for the black helicopters to swoop in and destroy all of his civil liberties, the government decided to let him have his guns and simply just take all of his civil liberties.
What is most alarming about Obama’s expansion of President George W. Bush’s anti-terrorism policies is the fact that anti-Bush liberals don’t care if Obama commits these acts. Warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, rendition and torture were all borrowed from Bush by Obama and are now decade-old practices of the CIA and other security organizations.
Obama even authorized the assassination of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, whose main crime was sympathizing with al-Qaeda and preaching anti-Americanism. Civil libertarians accuse the government of not affording him a trial for his crimes. The U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder countered by saying, “The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.”
Other democrats seem to be on board with this frame of mind as well. Last month while no one was taking anyone’s gun from anybody, the Senate voted in favor of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which allows the government to collect data on any American citizen and hold onto it forever. When, why and how this information is used is yet to be determined.
Despite liberals declaring Bush a tyrant, dictatorial and borderline evil for implementing these civil liberties violations during his tenure, they seem to have stopped caring. Where Bush was grabbing for power, Obama is merely strategically practical.
Despite all of these seemingly horrible findings, the fact of the matter is that Obama’s tactics have worked. Crime in the United States has been dramatically reduced over the past decade and international terrorist organizations are unable to exert their power to the United States. But where should the line be drawn between our safety from criminals and our safety from the government?
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