Topic: Constitutional Issues
Defending Ourselves From The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee Attempts to limit self-defense are a threat to our Libertyby JD
(Libertarian)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Defending Ourselves From The Anti-Defamation League and The American Jewish Committee
Two items* in the news recently regarding gun control appear to have slipped below the radar. There's so much wrong with these stories that it's difficult to know where to begin. Rather than get tangled in the ADL/AJC's briar patch, I'll choose one of their thorny branches and pull the stickers off.
Glen Lewy and Abe Foxman of the ADL said: "If states lose the right to regulate firearm ownership..."
Hold on there, pardners. This shows such a basic misunderstanding of 'rights' that I'm afraid we may have to send these two commissars back to civics class.
States don't have rights. They have powers that we have a right to protect ourselves from. When an attempt is made to limit our ability to defend ourselves, we have a right to protect ourselves from that attempt.
Only you and I, as individuals, have rights. Mr. Lewy and Mr. Foxman have rights as individuals. Whatever special interest groups they may or may not represent don't have rights, but each individual in those groups has rights.
If someone were to suggest that Jews don't have a right to have the ability to defend themselves (which happened sometime in the last century if I recall), we'd all know it for the bootstomping move it would be. One either backs the power of the State over the rights of individuals or one backs the rights of individuals over the power of the State.
Mr. Lewy and Mr. Foxman appear to back the power of the State over our right to defend ourselves. They would have been right at home in 1936 Nuremberg.
As Frederic Bastiat stated so well over 150 years ago:
"What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
...If every person has the right to defend even by force his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right its reason for existing, its lawfulness is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force for the same reason cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
...Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all." The Law
We now have the right to defend ourselves from these threats to our LIberty by any means necessary.
New York, NY, January 11, 2008 The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called on the United States Supreme Court to continue to allow states to protect their citizens' lives, liberty and property by regulating the purchase and possession of firearms. The League urged the Court to ensure that states retain the ability to keep guns out of the hands of "violent bigots."
Glen S. Lewy, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
This case is about allowing states to protect their citizens' lives, liberty and property by regulating the purchase and possession of firearms.
Gun violence and the caching of dangerous weapons are commonplace among extremists. If states lose the right to regulate firearm ownership, it would help violent bigots in their efforts to create an America based on hate and intolerance. We urge the Supreme Court to ensure that states have the tools to counter these agents of hate.
We are also deeply concerned about the possession and use of firearms by children. The Court must permit states to keep guns out of the hands of those who would bring violence to our schools.
The regulation of firearms is a rational response to these twin evils and is consistent with the Second Amendment's call for a well-regulated militia.
This case, District of Columbia v Heller, will determine for the first time in over 60 years whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to firearms for private use.
ADL joined a coalition in filing a "friend-of-the-court" brief to the Court, contending that the Second Amendment should not be interpreted as limiting a state's authority to regulate firearms when it seeks to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. Rather, the brief argues, the language of the Amendment can only be reasonably read to prohibit the federal government from interfering with such state regulation.
Jeffrey A. Lamken of Baker Botts L.L.P was the principal author of the coalition brief.
January 11, 2008 New York The American Jewish Committee filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court today, asserting that the District of Columbia's strict gun control laws do not offend the Constitution. The case, D.C. v. Heller, will be the first gun control case before the Supreme Court in sixty eight years.
"Gun control laws safeguard liberty, rather then restrict it," said AJC General Counsel Jeffrey Sinensky. "Democracy can only flourish when the government is permitted to protect its citizens from harm."
The amicus brief argues that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to possess firearms for personal use, but rather "was designed to enhance state and local authority to protect life and liberty through the maintenance of militias composed of the local populace."
AJC filed the brief with a coalition that includes the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, National Council of Jewish Women, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
AJC has a long history of supporting gun control laws, including the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, the federal Assault Weapon Control Act of 1989, and the Brady Handgun Prevention Act of 1993.
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2008 JD, all rights reserved.
Published: Sunday, January 13, 2008
Last modified: Sunday, January 13, 2008
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The ADL and AJC deny history and stand logic on it's head with these arguments.
First history, how do they think the American boys who liberated Europe and freed their ancestors from concentration camps learned to use guns...in the National Guard? No, it was the practice of handling and using guns from adolescence through man hood that made them the effective soldiers they were.
Also, America has had millions of guns in the hands of it's citizens for centuries, and of all the places in the world, the US is the least bigoted vis a vis the Jewish people of any place on Earth.
Given these two facts, by what logic could you conclude some surge in bigotry would take place, if the Surpreme Court merely reaffirms an individuals right to keep and bear arms?
And second, given the same set of facts, why would you seek to disarm the only people in the world who have come to your aid over and over when your people were at the mercy of their enemies?
I can't imagine that these groups speak for the Jewish people, unless they are suicidel.
I infer from these articles that if I chose to own a gun or, God forbid, use it in self defense, that I am an ignorant bigot and an extremeist. Seems to me that this is a tad defamatory. Seems to me that a group issuing such defamation and advertising itself an anti defamation league should be sued for fraud.
But I am not so concerned with the harm done to me as I am with the harm done to the law by these iniatives and there is a more practical thing that can be done. It is among our common law liberties to submit an amicus brief in the matter.
I infer from these articles that if I chose to own a gun or, God forbid, use it in self defense, that I am an ignorant bigot and an extremeist. Seems to me that this is a tad defamatory. Seems to me that a group issuing such defamation and advertising itself an anti defamation league should be sued for fraud.
But I am not so concerned with the harm done to me as I am with the harm done to the law by these iniatives and there is a more practical thing that can be done. It is among our common law liberties to submit our own amicus brief in the matter.
"It's not anti-semitic to criticize the actions and policies of the ADL. "
Its not inherently anti-simitic, and they certainly merit criticism, but you failed to answer or even adress my question: Do you love freedom more than you hate Jews?
Bastiat is the boundary between the civilized and the plunderers. Parents should MAKE their kids read and understand him. That's the required reading that matters. : )
Most of the murders are perpetrated by people using weapons acquired illegally. Imposing a gun control on people who legitimately acquire them will leave them defenseless against these criminal aggressors. Furthermore it is not anti-semitic at all to criticize some measures pushed by some goons who call themselves Jews when many of them have been involved in some of the biggest fraud scandals and most aggressive spying in American soil. These are precisely the people we have to protect ourselves from. BTW, You smearers don't even know what a Semite is. Look beyond your own noses (expression adapted from the Latin language, no pun intended)
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2008 JD, all rights reserved.