George Clooney has always been in a furious race to get his politics to out-suck his acting talents. I don't think he's ever made a movie I didn't like, but the fact is he's a raging liberal, and I find it irritating that he can't just shut up and let me enjoy his films without tacking the cost of tolerating his idiot ideas on top of the ticket price.
He's also a real font of liberal double standards and hypocrisy. As Rush Limbaugh deals with the fallout from comments he made about Michael J. Fox, he pointed out how there was no outrage when Clooney mocked Charlton Heston's battle with Alzheimer's. "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's." Apart from being uncreative, it's also a direct mocking of a person's medical condition. When asked about it, Clooney said "I don't care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association. He deserves whatever anyone says about him."
What I find interesting about this is the way Clooney views the 2nd Amendment. He seems to think it's an argument people will accept to suggest that somebody closely involved with the NRA is fair game. Of course he can mock a person's tragic and inevitably fatal illness, because that person has committed the horrible crime of supporting the 2nd Amendment.
Liberals will shriek endlessly about the precious 1st Amendment. After all, it allows them to blather irresponsible drivel and call it “freedom of the press.” It allows them to staple dildos to pictures of Jesus, and call it “artistic expression.” Basically it's a free pass from having any restraint or thoughtfulness in your life. When it comes to being sheltered from the consequences of their idiotic prattling, liberals are major Constitutional scholars.
But the 2nd Amendment... They're not such fans of the Bill of Rights when it comes to the 2nd. In fact, they consider supporting that part of the Bill of Rights to be grounds for any sort of insult or attack they desire. Think about that. When Donald Rumsfeld says somebody is wrong, and has poor judgement, Keith Olbermann thinks he's a censor and a fascist. Liberals are ultra-sensitive to any threat, real or imagined, to their precious 1st Amendment. But the 2nd... Not only is it not worth protecting, but people who do protect it are bastards.
Could George W. Bush start talking like the 1st Amendment was a threat to the country, and imply that anybody who didn't see the need to repeal it is a bastard? Is there a single other Amendment that people feel comfortable dismissing so aggressively?
Look at the actual text of the two Amendments.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
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.
The 1st Amendment says “Congress shall make no law.” What it doesn't say is that local govenrments shall make no law. It doesn't say that the President shall take no action. It doesn't say that businesses, organizations, etc. shall take no action. Somehow this Amendment has gone from a limitation on Congress, to a blanket right that nobody, no individual, no company, nobody at all, can threaten.
When CNN plays propaganda videos produced by our enemies, gives those videos wide exposure, they are quite literally “providing aid and comfort to the enemy.“ But they are protected by the 1st Amendment, the vaunted “freedom of the press,“ a right which has grown, even under the oppressive Bush regime, to completely trump all other laws. They are protected even as the liberals shriek that their rights are diminishing.
What about the 2nd Amendment? Bear in mind that this is the “Bill of Rights.” It's a list of rights available to all Americans. Some people will try to use the “militia” portion of this Amendment to say that if you're not in a militia you can't have guns, and we don't have any militias. That's not what the words say. This is a list of rights. This right starts out “A well regulated militia.” We have a right to form militias, and to own and carry the weapons necessary to make them effective military units. The fact that we don't currently have any militias doesn't deny us the right to keep and bear arms. On the contrary, it demonstrates the extent to which we have already had this right taken away from us.
Note also that this Amendment does not limit itself just to Congress. It says that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” By anyone. Not the Federal government, not the state governments, not local government. Not anyone.
I support the 1st Amendment, I support the 2nd Amendment. I support all of them. This is called consistency, and it's not a hallmark of liberals. It is, however, the hallmark of a stable, understandable system of government.
If George Clooney and his friends in government don't think the 2nd Amendment applies any more, then they need to change the Bill of Rights. Don't sneak little attacks in on the state level, come out and say you're going to strike the Amendment down. Be bold, and make it clear. Then these people can learn why the 2nd Amendment is, perhaps, the most important Amendment of all. The Founding Fathers were men who earned their freedom and defended their morality by killing those who would take their freedom and compromise their morality. They understood that there comes a time when talking just won't cut it. They did not suffer from the moral vacancy that so thoroughly permeates the American left.
The 2nd Amendment says to our lawmakers, that if they don't stop sucking so goddamn bad, if they don't figure out how not to embarass us at every turn, we have a Constitutional right to blow their idiot heads off, until somebody more capable comes along. At this point in our history, as the two major parties struggle mightily to out-suck one another, I don't think the 2nd Amendment has ever been any more relevant.