Today's disgraceful display at the Supreme Court regarding the Second Amendment is yet another in a long string of nods by right wing extremists to the form of government American natives have become accustomed to whilst simultaneously dismantling it before their very eyes.  There is nothing subtle about the intentions of the second rate legal minds the Republicans (with the help of cowardly Democrats) have installed at the once respected Supreme Court of the United States as it relates to their plans for perverting the Second Amendment.  The telegrphed very well what they plan on doing.

Today, the wingnut justices signaled that they will concoct another of their absurd and tortured legal theories for the purpose of deliberately twisting the meaning and intention of the second amendment in order to hand the gun lobby an unwarranted victory and to satiate the unending desire of authoritarian lizard brains all over America to have any and every kind of handgun available to them so as to easily kill friends, neighbors, family members, strangers, or even local officials and policemen at a moments notice. 

It is, after all, our clear and unfettered right to own guns is it not?  Without being held back or even slowed down by the real purpose and meaning of the amendment, the language clearly reads as the wingnuts witsh it to read precisely because they wish it to be so.  Why, under this view of the "right" to bear arms which is an abbreviation after all of  the word armaments, their really is no logical end to the breadth of this right is there.  The "right" the wingnuts are creating out of thin air is absolute and has no real limits based upon their arguments and thus no armamanent is too dangerous to be kept out of the possession of private citizens with enough money to buy one.  Is an AK-47 not covered by the Second Amendment since it clearly qualifies as "arms"?  What about a bazooka?  Are fully autocmatic  machine guns not also arms?  One would think that we must also not infringe upon the right of every paranoid nutcase to own hand grenades then or flamethrowers, cluster bombs, land mines and all other arms which it is their right to bear eh?

Ultimately then, are not nuclear weapons arms that a milita might use to protect and defend a free state and if not, why not?  I see no language whatsoever limiting this right if the wingnut interpretation of the Second Amendment becomes law.  If the right to armaments is as they say then how can we keep anyone at all from owning any type or quantity of arms they wish to possess? Sure, it's insane thinking, but that is exactly the thinking of the NRA, the gun nuts and their right wing enablers on the courts and in the Congress. 
It sickens me and most civilized Americans that this idiotic farce is taking place, but this is what you get IMHO when you don't hit the streets and demand free and fair elections when  you know damn well a Presidential election has been stolen.  This is what you get when you don't do something radical to object to clearly illegal and immoral invasions of other sovereign nations.  This is the result you get when you elect cowardly corporate whores with the label "Democrat" to the US Senate who routinely approve cracpot extremists to lifetime appointments on the federal bench.  And this is what happens when you are more interested in creature comforts than in maintaining your natural right to liberty, democracy and a free and open society. 

The reason this is the sort of thing you get is because those foisting this ruination of our once great country understand full well that no one is really going to do anything effective to stop them from doing as they please.  This is the the most perceptive part of the fascist mindset and it is why they have run roughshod over the Constitution and our laws now for the past seven years.  Remember the occupation of the Rhineland?  Hitler said that had the allies stood up to him at that point he would have had no choice but to back down and would have withdeawn his troops back within the borders of Germany according to treaty obligations.  The same principle has been in play here in our country now since 2000.  The equivalent for Americans today came when the illegitimate regime came to the legitimate Congress and asked them to authorize a war, the rationale for which, was built on nothing but lies.  Had the Democrats refused to let Bush cross tht line, we would not be seeing this sort of brazen trampling of our most treasured Bill of Rights.  The complete and deliberate misinterpratation of the second amendment is just one such power grab they are executing simply because they can.

In order not to belabor the point for too long by going over the sophistry of the right wing nutcases on the high court today I will offer as refutation the right wing claptrap arguments a passage from a book called "The Bill of Rights, It's Origin and Meaning" which was nominated for a National Book Award in 1966.  The author is a man named Irving Brant, a renowned biographer of Madison. 

So, this bit of wisdom written decades ago in the 1960's speaks volumes to us today in just a short excerpt and provides enough rationale for the courts to have thrown out the challenge to the DC handgun law long ago.  What Brant wrote then is completely relevant to the case before the court today and succinctly reveals how utterly false and absurd are the arguments of the right wing regarding the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Brant writes on page 478 of the paperback version:

"The Second Amendment, popularly misread, comes to life chiefly on the parade floats of rifle associations and in the propaganda of mail-order houses selling pistols to teenage gangsters: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'  As the wording reveals, this article relates entirely to the militia--a fact that was made even clearer by a clause dropped from Madison's original wording: 'but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms should be compelled to render military service in person.'  It was made clearest of all in the congressional debate on the amendment.  Why was a militia necessary to 'the security of a free state'?  Elbridge Gerry asked and answered that question: 'What, sir, is the use of a militia?  It is to preven the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.'  Thus the purpose of the Second Amendment was to forbid Congress  to prohibit the maintenance of a state militia.  By its nature, that amendment cannot be transformed into a personal right to bear arms, enforceable by federal compulsion upon the states."

It's just incredible what a bit of factual knoweldge can do to refute the twisted fantasies of right wing authoritarians isn't it?

Please allow me to interrupt the caterwalling betwixt the Clinton and Obama loyalists for a brief public service announcement:

We need a different candidate for President and one that isn't Hillary or Barack.

Both of our candidates are weak and clearly have the potential to lose to McCain in November because of their glaring vulnerabilities and weaknesses.  Yes, both could win, but given the close outcomes when the two are matched against McCain at this point it appears just as likely that either of them could lose in November.  It never fails that the Democrats lead at the start of the November race and that margin shrinks the closer we get to election day.  In most cases in modern memory the lead disappears and the enemy wins the White House.  Can we really afford to allow this to happen simply because we've gotten stuck with these two?  I think not.  I hope not.  It's time to look for an alternative that produces a better result from voters that isn't purely about the ego of the candidates themselves and of their loyalists.

Now, given the fact that since 2001 we have been ruled by the most illegitimate, incompetent, and corrupt adminsitration in our history, it seems to me 2008 oughtta be one helluva Democratic year.  The top of the ticket should smash that Republicans big time and lead the party from top to bottom to huge gains across the board in every state and city.  But with either of these two centrist/corporate Democratic choices the best we can hope for is to survive November by barely meeting an ancient and addled right wing nut.  Neither bests McCain convincingly.  I wouldn't call that a very desirable position for us to be in right now compared to the position we should be in.

The time has come for people to wake up and smell the centrism and look for another choice for President! 

We should have a candidate who can unite all Democrats of all races, genders, economic classes and one who is not beholden to corporate interests and who understands that we must actually address the major issues confronting the nation once elected.  This new candidate needs to be someone who also understands the only way to actually get anything done on things like the economy, the war, global warming/climate change, national health care, expanding educational opportunities and addressing the needs of the poor is to win big in November in an historic landslide victory.  That means they would have to take the gloves off and go toe to toe not just with the GOP candidate, but with the corporate media and with all those who continue to advocate the policies of weakness and capitulation DC Democrats apparently love.

Neither Clinton nor Obama, at this point, appears to be in a position to win enough elected delegates to actually secure the nomination.  It would seem to me entirely reasonable given this important fact, and the divisions that have been growing in the party, to be looking right now for a third candidate who will be stronger than either of them against McCain.

Anyone who can fit this bill is okay by me.  I don't have a preferred new candidate.  But the first step that needs to be taken is to acknowledge that neither Clinton nor Obama are strong candidates in the fall and that their weaknesses in November threaten Democratic victory and thus Democratic policy aims across the board.