The “Creative” Times

It is instructive to see the editorial thought process of the New York Times in action. The are, without a doubt, the most vociferous proponents of extremely strict interpretation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. So much so, in fact, that they are the arbiters of what may or may not be kept secret by the government. Just ask them. However, if they disagree with an amendment they have, shall we say, creative interpretations.

America’s confusion about the Second Amendment is now nearly total. An amendment that ensures a collective right to bear arms has been misread in one legislature after another — often in the face of strong public disapproval — as a law guaranteeing an individual’s right to carry a weapon in public. And, in a perversion of monumental proportions, the battle to extend that right has largely succeeded in co-opting the language of the Civil Rights movement, so that depriving an American of the right to carry a gun in public sounds, to some, as offensive as stripping him of the right to vote. Senator Allen’s bill is, of course, being cheered by the gun lobby, which sees it not as an assault on public safety but as a way of nationalizing the armed paranoia that the National Rifle Association and its cohorts stand for.

Let's just think for a moment about that, shall we? If, as the Times interprets, this is only a collective right and not an individual one, why is it necessary in the Bill of Rights at all? But the killer argument comes from Jon Henke at QandO. He creatively turns the Times own logic right around and applies it to the First Amendment.

An amendment that ensures a collective right to free speech has been misread in one legislature after another — often in the face of strong public disapproval — as a law guaranteeing an individual’s right to speak freely in public.

Brilliant, devastating and irrefutable. Which means the editorial writers at the Times will not understand it in any way, shape or form.