Andrea Mitchell channeled her inner Moreno in her afternoon broadcast today, when she said that the Second Amendment can be infringed because we already do it to the First. Mitchell had Gun Owners For America’s Eric Pratt on her show, and NewsBusters’ Kyle Drennan reported that this remark was “in response to Pratt explaining: “…a very important concept of inalienable rights, because whether it’s the right to vote, right to sit behind a microphone, or the right to choose how I’m going to protect myself, all those rights cannot be infringed, as the Second Amendment says.”
ERICH PRATT: Well, we don’t think that any of the things that he’s proposing would have stopped what happened in Connecticut, wouldn’t have stopped Adam Lanza from killing a victim and stealing those firearms to commit such an atrocity. If there is an area of agreement that we have with the President, he quoted from the Declaration of Independence saying that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. And that’s a very important concept of inalienable rights, because whether it’s the right to vote, right to sit behind a microphone, or the right to choose how I’m going to protect myself, all those rights cannot be infringed, as the Second Amendment says.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Well, they can be infringed, because the First Amendment is infringed, I have to obey all sorts of regulations from the FCC, there are things we can’t say in a crowded theater, so every right also carries with it responsibilities and obligations.
PRATT: What’s interesting about that, though, is we don’t gag people before they go into the theater, we punish the lawbreakers. And in the same way, we would argue punish those who abuse the right, but don’t gag law-abiding citizens before they exercise their right. We shouldn’t be registering them like sex offenders, like they are in New York. We shouldn’t be in any way impeding them if they have not committed a crime.
It sad that we have a political wing of this country who feel that the Bill of Rights is nothing more than toilet paper.
It sad that we have a political wing of this country who feel that the Bill of Rights is nothing more than toilet paper.
No quite right since toilet paper is useful, and these people see zero use in armed peasants.
Mitchell has made an excellent case for getting rid of most of the FCC regulations for being unconstitutional impairments of 1stA RIGHTS.
Although Pratt responded well with respect to the obvious non-sequitur regarding 2cndA infringements, the wider point was omitted: No precedent of Constitutional violations by government imparts it the right to further violations, nor does it grant the right to continue and perpetuate, let alone multiply, violations already committed.
This follows inexorably from the Constitution’s special status as the supreme law of the land, valid for all jurisdictions. As per Article VI, all laws made in pursuance thereof would be legal, but not a single one, ever, when violating it. The moment we hold otherwise, implicitly or explicitly, the Constitution effectively vanishes.
Leftists and Libtards understand this principle only too well, and have been using it for well over a century to undermine the rule of law in this country. When will we Conservatives understand it, too? When will we use our understanding to rub the noses of the likes of Mitchell in it every chance we get? Intransigently and as loudly as the occasion permits?
Unconstitutional laws are illegal laws. No amount or length of practice can change that. No such enactments can ever justify their multiplication! Time we insisted?!
“there are things we can’t say in a crowded theater,”
falsely crying “fire” is one of them. emphasis on “falsely”. ruling idiots.
– channeled her inner Rita Moreno, “Everything Free in A-mer-i-ca!”
I wonder if her husband is equally responsible with his ideas regarding society?
You can always count on lazy dimwits like Andrea Mitchell to deploy the old “fire in a crowded theater” routine as a weapon of last resort to cover the retreat when they’ve given up on attempting to say anything insightful about free speech or natural rights in general. Yes, one may potentially be punished for the measurable harm caused, for example, by deliberately false speech or incitement to violence.
If on the other hand one truly believes there is a fire in the proverbial theater, than one has not merely the right but the duty to cry it out.
Moron.
Pratt does so much better debating gun rights than anyone at the NRA. I have to keep my NRA membership but I will be joining the GOA.