At least according to Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution:
A hundred years from now, historians and sociologists will look back on these times and puzzle over the right’s utter fanaticism over firearms. Much like we look back today and wonder how New Englanders could really have believed that a few odd women might have been witches and burned them at the stake…
The rest is calling for removing the rights of Americans without due process of law, which I say historians will one day look back on, and say was kind of like when we denied many Americans their basic rights without due process in the South prior to the civil rights movement. Ridiculous assertion? No more than hers.
I’d say “much less ridiculous, actually,” but I don’t have much faith in most historians and sociologists today, let alone three generations from now.
Ignorance. No witches were burned at the stake in New England, and they weren’t all women.
I went all Joe Huffman on them:
Look what I found. A news clipping from 1909 from a popular Southern newspaper.
“A hundred years from now, historians and sociologists will look back on these times and puzzle over the right’s utter fanaticism over rights for negroes. Much like we look back today and wonder how New Englanders could really have believed that a few odd women might have been witches and burned them at the stake, Americans of the future will look back and wonder why the NAACP could make grown men tremble at its pronouncements, why Congress couldn’t muster the spine to pass simple Jim Crow laws, why — with thousands of negro deaths a year — state legislators decided to allow negroes into bars and places of worship.
One of the oddest scenes those future historians will have to ponder was Wednesday’s hearing on a simple, common-sense bill to prevent negroes on the negro watch list from buying weapons and explosives. Can’t we restrict negroes, at least, from owning a gun? No, we can’t.
As NYT columnist Gail Collins put it:
There seems to be a strong sentiment in Congress that the only constitutional right negroes have is the right to bear arms.â€
Denial of due process by secret lists takes us back to a time of Jim Crow laws, legalized discrimination, and rule by men not laws. There is a reason why the 14th Amendment exists.
For more fun, replace Negroes with Jews. Or Arabs. Or the Irish. Or the Chinese. Or Native Americans. Etc…
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I love critical journalism review. I follow a blog called “Blog for Arizona” that continues to assert that the mainstream media is biased against modern day liberals. I appreciate having these anti-freedom techniques used by journalists pointed out.
So the Founding Fathers were right about guns but wrong about people of color?
At first I misread the quote as talking about the _left’s_ fascination with firearms. It made a lot more sense that way.
So the Founding Fathers were right about guns but wrong about people of color?
Yes
If they wanted the Constitution to not apply to people of color, they probably would have written so.
Instead they fought hard against slavery, which eventually, about 100 years later, resulted in the infamous 3/5ths compromise that ended up being one of the many reasons for the US Civil War…
The Constitution is astonishingly careful to never use the word “slave.” Why? Because just about everyone involved (including the large minority of delegates who were slave owners) regarded slavery as an ugly abomination likely to fade away in a couple of generations. The Eli Whitney invented the improved cotton gin that revived slavery.
Even the 3/5 rule so often regarded as a sign of the prejudice against black people–was invented by opponents of slavery. The delegates from the South wanted slaves counted for purposes of voting representation the same as free person (white or black); they just didn’t want them counted for purposes of taxation. Northern delegates wanted slaves counted for purposes of apportioned taxes–but not for representation. The 3/5 ratio was the compromise.
Yep, and yet — nobody accuses damnedYankees of believing Negroes didn’t even count as people!
Here’s the comment that I posted in the AJC:
According to Cynthia Tucker: “Much like we look back today and wonder how New Englanders could really have believed that a few odd women might have been witches and burned them at the stake…â€
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No New England witches (Salem, MA) were burned at the stake. Instead, they were hung, pressed to death by stones, or died in prison. This misinformation is typical of sloppy reporters who have a belief system that is totally at odds with reality, or think they know more than they do. I won’t bother addressing the rest of this reporter’s half-baked opinions except to ask her the importance of “due process†when considering a restriction of someone’s civil rights. Would she consider restricting her first amendment rights based on a secret list that cannot be challenged?