David Mamet: Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm

[saveliberty]

The Daily Beast:

Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm†

Jan 29, 2013 12:00 AM EST

 

The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so. By David Mamet. Get the full issue of Newsweek today on your iPad and other editions.

 

Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.

 

 

For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.”<a name="body_text2" style="visibility:hidden">

 

All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. They are paid to follow orders.

 

*******

Read the whole thing. Calling @Valin.

[Valin]

 

 

The Daily Beast:

Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm†

Jan 29, 2013 12:00 AM EST

 

The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so. By David Mamet. Get the full issue of Newsweek today on your iPad and other editions.

 

 

Read the whole thing. Calling @Valin.

 

 

Thank You!!! This should be good.

[Valin]

he Founding Fathers, far from being ideologues, were not even politicians. They were an assortment of businessmen, writers, teachers, planters; men, in short, who knew something of the world, which is to say, of Human Nature.

 

Disagree, they were in point of fact politicians, and operated in a political world. The problem is today the word Politician has taken on a very negative connotation...much like used car salesman...personal injury lawyer...bank robber (without the positive qualities of these people).

We have a tendency to put the Founders/Framers up on a pedestal.

 

The Constitution’s drafters did not require a wag to teach them that power corrupts: they had experienced it in the person of King George. The American secession was announced by reference to his abuses of power: “He has obstructed the administration of Justice … he has made Judges dependant on his will alone …

 

At the start of the Continental Congress all they wanted was the rights traditionally granted to Englishmen. Only a few of the radicals (Sam Adams, Patrick Henry...etc) saw the need for Independency.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Valin
PS

[saveliberty]

He was right about John Adams, @Valin. Adams was an attorney and he had built up a successful practice. His business and popularity suffered after he defended the British in court over the Boston Massacre.

[Valin]

From the Comments

 

aspat

3 minutes ago

 

When did Mamet have his brain removed? This 8th grade level tea party posturing is so moronic and lacking in any basis of fact that it makes you question his entire body of work. Literally every sentence in this shrill screed is wrong or such a false equivalence as to make Dr Seuss blush. Maybe Mamet really is that boorish, obnoxious character he wrote about with such clarity. Pathetic coward.

 

 

WalterAdams

2 minutes ago

 

@aspat Is their a counter argument in this little rant somewhere?

[saveliberty]

Benjamin Franklin had his start as a printer, then author and later became a scientist, inventor and philanthropist.

 

This link has information about Washington and Jefferson (and more about Adams)

[Valin]

He was right about John Adams, @Valin. Adams was an attorney and he had built up a successful practice. His business and popularity suffered after he defended the British in court over the Boston Massacre.

 

And he was also a politician. Nothing wrong with politics & politicians...that a better class of politicians couldn't cure. Of course some probably said this 10 minutes after George Washington was sworn in...if not sooner.

 

 

(Off Topic)

I'll have to tell the sad story of me trying to fet hired as a Security Guard by Pinkerton.

[Valin]

The money quote!

 

My grandmother came from Russian Poland, near the Polish city of Chelm. Chelm was celebrated, by the Ashkenazi Jews, as the place where the fools dwelt. And my grandmother loved to tell the traditional stories of Chelm.

 

Its residents, for example, once decided that there was no point in having the sun shine during the day, when it was light out—it would be better should it shine at night, when it was dark. Similarly, we modern Solons delight in passing gun laws that, in their entirety, amount to “making crime illegal.”