Paul Begala On God, Guns And The Government
BY Herschel SmithCNN:
This notion — that the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to fire upon federal officials, or their local police, or sheriffs or even U.S. military personnel — is common among right wingers. But it’s one thing to hear, say, goofball Ted Nugent honk off that way. (The Nuge, by the way, has boasted about how he avoided taking up arms in defense of his country during Vietnam.) It is another to know that someone with those loopy views is one step away from the United States Senate.
The Washington Monthly blogger Ed Kilgore has asked the right question — the one any Iowa voter should be putting to Ms. Ernst: “Since you brought it up, exactly what circumstances would justify you shooting a police officer or a soldier in the head?”
Good question, Ed. Is it OK to do so if, say, the Supreme Court stops the counting of votes so as to give the presidency to the candidate who got fewer votes? I don’t think so.
How about segregation? If ever American citizens were oppressed by their government it was African-Americans under Jim Crow. Thank God we had Dr. King and not Ms. Ernst leading the civil rights movement.
Perhaps Ms. Ernst reserves her bloody right to truly egregious government actions, like ensuring affordable health care, even to folks with pre-existing conditions? Lord, I hope not.
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Don’t believe me? Ask George Washington. Gen. Washington, as president, forcefully rejected the notion that American citizens had a revolutionary right to take up arms against their government — even against the most hated government officials enforcing the most hated government program. President Washington and his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, sought to enforce a tax on whiskey, which Congress passed in 1791. A group of Pennsylvania whiskey distillers objected, violently. In what was known as the Whiskey Rebellion, they refused to pay the tax and burned the home of the federal tax collector.
Washington personally led 13,000 troops to crush the rebellion (the only time a president has commanded troops in the field). Washington was willing to shed blood to ensure no one took up arms against his or her own country.
To argue that the Second Amendment allows citizens to turn their guns on their government is to repudiate the actions of George Washington, as well as the Constitution itself.
I say this as a gun owner — and I’m not just talking about some puny 9 mm like the one Ms. Ernst brags about. At last count I have 22 guns. I use them to hunt, shoot targets, and bond with my family. My grandfather was a hunter and gun owner, as is my father, as am I — as are my sons.
But neither we, nor Ms. Ernst nor any American has the right to turn those weapons on American military personnel, peace officers or other government officials.
The last refuge of a gun control scoundrel is to claim that he has guns, and the more of them the better. But I couldn’t care less if he has 2200 guns. As the saying goes, beware of the man with one gun. He probably knows how to use it.
Begala’s invoking of George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion is rich. Only someone like him could ignore the fact that the entire continental congress in effect turned their guns on their own government, and commissioned George Washington as general to lead the effort.
But Begala quickly turns his attention away from the founding fathers to examples of things that would cause a man to turn a weapon on his own government. Socialized medicine? Nope. Racism and Jim Crow laws? Nope. But how far does this go Paul? Where would you draw the line?
Would it be okay with you if the government showed up at your doorsteps one day to confiscate your grandchildren to take them off to be put to death because they happened to be born different? What should the parent of a Down’s syndrome child think when this happens? What about Jews, Paul? What about Catholics, Paul? You’re a Catholic (at least nominally). A number of religious clerics went along with Hitler’s plans.
But there were good men too, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller who opposed Naziism to their own demise. In which camp are you, Paul?
I have a feeling that Paul Begala can’t answer the question. Note that God was never invoked in Begala’s missive, but it is in my own title. That’s because to a collectivist, there is nothing more supreme than the state. Not the right to vote, not the right to be free, not the right to bear arms, not the right to use them. To the collectivist, the state is god. And if you have no threshold that can be crossed, no trigger than can be pulled, literally no action that the state can take and be opposed by you with force of arms, you’re no different from those pictured above. And I’m glad I don’t know you.

