The Aberdeen Foundation

LETTER FROM THE GRAVE

Why are you drawing artificial lines in the miry quicksand of Constitutional irrationality with your erstwhile defense of our carefully defined Second Amendment? Can you not plainly read our clearly worded and concise erudition that specifically states, “. . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?” We hear reports that some modern Americans are opposed to neighbors constructing nuclear bombs in the privacy of their own garages. It has been rumored that some are attempting to prevent the wealthy and elite of modern American society from arming private Lear Jets with heat seeking missiles and chemical weapons. And unbelievable as it may seem, it has come to our attention that certain ‘infringers’ of Constitutionally-guaranteed rights are plotting to prevent future American corporations and individuals of wealth and esteem from arming privately-owned satellites with space-based laser and other as yet to be invented weaponry of necessary defense!

Have you lost all sense of patriotism and common decency? How can we expect god-less liberal pinko leftist Democrats and similar infidels to listen when from one side of the contradicting claptrap, you claim that regulating the sale of guns at circus tents (talk about your animal rights) is against our Second Amendment while from the other side, you go right on defending the Republican Party’s ongoing support of similar restrictions regarding advanced weaponry noted above? Is not your Constitutional right to own all manner of machine-gun and bazooka-type arms, which were also not invented when we first conceived our amendment, no different than your same right to arm private aircraft with nuclear bombs or at the very least, large conventional bombs? And what about your Constitutional right to manufacture anthrax and arm yourselves with toxic nerve gas?

Where is the sagacity of common sense and fair play? Since there is currently no public sale of advanced nuclear and toxic weaponry (at least as far as we know), we suspect that your sympathy in reality lies with the profiteers of gun manufacturing and the enhancement of your own bulging coffers at the expense of logical and sane weapons regulation. Is this not what your contradicting and uncompromising agenda is really all about? Is not your whole argument based on drawing your own lines for the biased purposes of your own self-interest without regard to what our Second Amendment actually says? Do you not think there may have been a good reason, however foreign it may seem to Constitutional Neanderthals of the 21st Century such as yourselves, why we qualified our amendment with the rationality of a “well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. . .”? Have you even bothered to notice that the entire constitutional document we spent so much time and consideration painstakingly crafting was duly prefaced with “. . . in order to. . . insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, provide for the general welfare. . ."? Do you not think we might consider it rather naïve to suppose that the modern-day American population can somehow be assured domestic tranquility while dangerous criminals and outright lunatics are allowed to control an unlimited personal arsenal without any necessary background checks?

In closing, we have taken sad notice of late that our carefully defined First Amendment is being constantly and consistently violated by a very great many modern American county and city ordinances and in every American publicly supported classroom. We unanimously would like to know why you who are so riled up over the Second Amendment are not out in the streets screaming about such rampant abuse of our First Amendment. And what about those God-awful taxes you currently allow without raising an eyebrow, even supporting the lying Republican hypocrites who raise them? Do you not know that we revolted over a 3% taxation issue? Talk about your one-trick ponies---Would it not be better for all concerned if your self-serving and contradicting butts would simply ride off into the national polluted sunset, never to return to disturb the peace and tranquility and otherwise, endanger the health and general welfare of America's hard-working and decent common folk? *

Signed,
John Hancock

On behalf of Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin
and the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution.

Seeds of Peace The Norman Lear Center

DEDICATED TO: Benjamin Franklin,** who perhaps more than any other single individual, was responsible for the "common sense" practical compromise solution that eventually became the Constitution and who, along with the rest of the original signers, undoubtedly never in a million years intended either the first or the Second Amendment to be misinterpreted and totally misconstrued into a ridiculous sham farce prop for the superficial social and political chicanery which today passes for 'protection' of our Constitutional rights. *** Also dedicated to television producer Norman Lear , who undoubtedly deserves a lifetime achievement award for exposing the social and political hypocrisy of our modern American society. As the Greeks long ago reasoned to be the downside of democracy and as the original constitutional framers may have also perceived with no small reservation, it is not all that difficult to fool a whole lot of the people far too much of the time.

*FootNote: In spite of modern ‘scientific’ Natural Selectionism buffoonery (perhaps more accurately, baboonery) to the contrary, due to the historically obvious drive of irrational greed rooted towards violence that is fundamental to our ‘advanced’ species (see Of God and Monkey Business for more information), it is arguably a God-given Human Right superceding any governmental authority for one to be allowed to protect and defend one’s own person and immediate family. It is also quite clear, given the modern technological reality, that what is sorely needed is for responsible adults to propose reasonable legislation that permits individuals to thus protect themselves while at the same time, allows for the sane regulation of modern weapons. What is clearly not needed are the irrational and unbending views of both extremes on the opposing sides of the current gun-control issue. It should be noted that the Constitution does not address gun control---it wisely addresses the larger issue of “arms”. Those who would argue that the framers in fact meant “firearms” would also with same logic, need to limit the right to “bear arms” to firearms available at the time. Clearly with the same unreasonableness now being applied, if one has the Constitutional right to own an unlimited quantity of machine guns, bazookas, cannons, dangerous handguns and grenades, then one also has the same right to own nuclear bombs and similar advanced weaponry; that is, based on the same applied 'logic' of "strict" Constitutional theory. If it is unconstitutional to forbid the unregulated sale of guns and knives at ‘tent shows’, it is likewise against the intent of the framers of the Constitution to forbid the manufacture of advanced weaponry (including biological weapons) and to allow the sale of such, anywhere and everywhere as well. And it would not be all that surprising if some on the radical fringe indeed insist that we should be allowed, based on our Second Amendment 'rights', to harbor personal arsenals of biological, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

**FootNote II: Benjamin Franklin was probably the best of the lot of our sometimes self-contradictory "founding fathers". Though he became wealthy, he came from rather humble lower middle-class roots and was very much a man of the people, refusing to patent the lightning rod and many other important inventions that could have easily made him the original Carnegie, Ford or Rockefeller of America. He at one time owned a couple of slaves, but his one regret in old age was that he had not originally vehemently opposed slavery. Late in life, he became a strong abolitionist and devoted a great deal of time and energy helping to plant the seeds for an eventual Emancipation Proclamation and the modern Civil Rights Movement. We The People could have done a whole lot worse than inheriting the legacy of one Benjamin Franklin and we could most certainly use his pragmatic level-headedness today to offset the oppressive agenda of the lunatic fringe who currently wield a most anti-people ungodly power in America at the turn of the 21st Century. Benjamin Franklin had his faults, but then, who among us doesn't?

***FootNote III: This particular article was drafted in response to a recent all-to-correct claim by the National Rifle Association, which in April of 2002, very grandly and proudly proclaimed that they were responsible for the election (some would argue appointment) of a certain international buffoon now posing as a president. It is common knowledge in Arizona, Nevada and other so-called "gun nut" states, that the only reason a particular candidate in such states receives a favorable vote by a great many residents is the candidate's particular stance on the single issue of gun control, irregardless of whether or not that candidate may be leading us into World War III, mass famine and irreparable global pollution or whatever else their demented agenda may be. Very similar indeed, to fundamentalist Christian zealots, who consistently vote for 'family value' anti-abortion candidates who promote a twisted 'homeland security' fascist agenda, covering the breasts of half-naked statues while promoting war and rumor of war, ignoring our nation's health, sick and poor and totally disregarding the peace and stability of our children's future. There is perhaps nothing quite so hypocritical on God's polluted earth as gun fanatics' unbending position for the unlimited and unregulated "right to bear arms", that is, except for the similar extremist platform of the fundamentalist old time religion; blessed are the war mongers and fornicators of truth, justice and the American way, for they shall become the insane rulers of major modern nations, supported by conservative religious and other fanatical quackery and appointed by immoral and unethical judges representing corrupt corporation interests, if not otherwise freely elected.

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