I'm saddened to discover how few people value liberty more than they hate other people and love big government. It wasn't a surprise, but I still hate to see it.
One faction hates gun owners and wants armed government employees to take their guns and kill them if they resist.
Another faction hates people who dwell somewhere without government permission and wants armed government employees to kidnap, cage, and evict them. They are happy to see government agents kill these people and their supporters if either of them resist.
They don't realize how similar they are; both want to hand illegitimate power over you and me to government. Power which will never be relinquished and will be turned against them as soon as the political winds change and a different regime, with different ideas on governing, is in power. They've seen it happen. They are living through it. Still, they pretend it won't happen next time.
Or maybe they believe their opposition will never be in power again, in which case, they live in a fantasy.
Some of these angry people want majority opinion to rule us all. They like to pretend rights are based on popular opinion.
Others lean on constitutionality when it helps their side and ignore it when it would be inconvenient for their intentions. They make excuses, pretend the Constitution allows the legislation they want, and that rights depend on what the Constitution says.
Both sides ignore basic human rights they don't like. Both sides want legislation to be written or enforced to impose their wishes on everyone else.
Even the side which invokes the Constitution doesn't care what it has to say if it goes against what they want. They'll abuse and misinterpret the Constitution to make their case. To me, it looks like lying.
They act as though the Constitution is Mary Poppins' magic satchel; they can reach in and pull out whatever they want whenever they want it.
As anti-slavery activist and freelance post office entrepreneur Lysander Spooner pointed out in 1870, either the Constitution created this mess, or it was powerless to prevent it; either way, it is unfit to exist.
Pointing out hypocrisy may be the only utility the Constitution still has, having been thoroughly ignored almost from the beginning whenever it clearly limited any power the federal government, or a faction of its supporters, wanted it to exercise anyway. Some things never change.
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