Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Bullies & the Left

I'm going to post on my field trip to STI International tomorrow AM — so if you're in an anti-expensive gun mood, you might want to sleep in!

In the meantime, I wanted to post a bit of Peggy Noonan's superb column last Friday on OpinionJournal.com:
On "The View" a few days earlier it was Rosie O'Donnell. She was banging away on gun control. Guns are bad and should be banned. Elizabeth Hasselbeck, who plays the role of the young, attractive mom, tentatively responded. "I want to be fair," she said. Obviously there should be "restrictions," but women have a right to defend themselves, and there's "the right to bear arms" in the Constitution. Rosie accused Elizabeth of yelling. The panel, surprised, agreed that Elizabeth was not yelling. Rosie then went blank-faced with what someone must have told her along the way is legitimately felt rage. Elizabeth was not bowing to Rosie's views. Elizabeth needed to be educated. The education commenced, Rosie gesturing broadly and Elizabeth constricting herself as if she knew physical assault were a possibility. When Rosie gets going on the Second Amendment I always think, Oh I hope she's not armed! Actually I wonder what Freud would have made of an enraged woman obsessed with gun control. Ach, classic projection. Eef she had a gun she would kill. Therefore no one must haf guns.
I hadn't really hammered Rosie any more than usual because it's so damned hopeless...she is a vile human being with access to the MSM. But Ms. Noonan managed to put not just Rosie's most recent outburst, but the steady attack from the Left on the First Amendment, that of free speech, into a sort of clarity:
It is not only about rage and resentment, and how some have come to see them as virtues, as an emblem of rightness. I feel so much, therefore my views are correct and must prevail. It is about something so obvious it is almost embarrassing to state. Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with.
Read the whole thing!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I'm going to post on my field trip to STI International tomorrow AM — so if you're in an anti-expensive gun mood, you might want to sleep in!"

I promise I'll be nice.

iainmcphersn said...

I'm always in a pro-expensive gun mood. Of course in my current financial situation, this includes Lorcins and Ravens.

Anonymous said...

As I recall, shortly after dear ol Rosie ripped Tom Selleck on her previous show it came out that she had filed for and obtained a California concealed weapons carry permit for her personal bodyguard. Said he needed it to protect her child.
But then when you're better than the unwashed masses that make up your audience it makes perfect sense.