Linoge brought
this post to my attention. Go take a read - I disagree with Mr. Ellis' comments somewhat, and wanted to clarify something. I'm responding mainly to this comment:
And I would encourage others in the blogosphere not to be so quick to jump on the “I Am TJIC” bandwagon unless they have some pretty good answers to these questions. I know I don’t.
Someone, and I cannot remember who, wrote a wonderful piece that tied the two together - that you don't have to support what TJIC said in order to be appalled at what happened to him. In fact, it's an interesting Rorschach test - I have never said that I support what he said; just that I support him; in fact, I said exactly this:
What he wrote is distasteful to some - advocating the assassination of members of Congress immediately following a senseless shooting is in poor taste IMHO - but it's not treason. It's not inciting violence - he does not advocate the shooting of congress critters, he makes (what I assume to be) a tongue-in-cheek assessment that care needs to be taken to avoid collateral damage. It's in poor taste, that's for certain - but a threat? Hardly. There's nothing threatening involved.
Notice that I do *not* say that I agree with him - in fact, I call his words "in poor taste" - yet the simple fact that I abhor what's happened to him lumps me in with him - on both left and right leaning blogs. Simply because the actions taken against TJIC offend me - and, quite frankly, frighten me as a MA gun blogger - does not mean that I support his words. What I support is TJIC's right to speak his mind without retaliation from the government - the very first enumerated right in our Bill of Rights.
I don't know what Mr. Ellis knows of MA gun laws; the "suitability" clause is vague, applied capriciously and arbitrarily, and is absolutely unconstitutional - if you are denied a Class A or B LTC, you cannot own a handgun or a "large capacity" longarm in MA. IOW, you are denied the very tools given to our military, in clear contravention to the 2nd Amendment. There are court cases currently being argued against this policy - Alan Gura and the SAF are spearheading efforts in conjunction with Comm2A, a local advocacy group, because of the inequality in how these are handled as well as the capricious nature. Let's not lose sight of the fact that TJIC was not charged with a crime, something that gets lost in the shuffle. His actions did not warrant criminal charges, yet he faces the prospect of permanent revocation of his Second Amendment rights.
On its face, this action should scare the hell out of any freedom loving American. We have a citizen who has committed no crime, yet is being punished by the government by revoking an enumerated right. That's the core of what's going on here, and it's why I support TJIC. I don't care for what he said; I don't agree with his views in many cases; yet this is PRECISELY what the First Amendment is about - it's to protect the speech that we find most repugnant. I can't stand the bastards at Westboro Baptist, the ones that protest soldiers' funerals and such - yet I support their right to speak their "minds" without fear of governmental retribution. It doesn't mean I support their goals.
We stand for liberty, or we do not. We support all speech as free from government retribution, or we support no freedom of speech. The Second Amendment is under fire in the wake of the tragedy in Tucson - and now, as evidenced by the actions taken against TJIC, so is the First Amendment. We don't have to like what TJIC said - in fact, we can loathe it with every fiber of our being - but we need to recognize that the government punishing a citizen for speaking their mind is dead-set against everything this country stands for. Distasteful does not equal illegal. One does not need to agree with the speech involved to support the freedom of the speaker to say it.
I still stand with TJIC. That is all.
