Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Monday, March 17, 2008

And So It Begins...

Oral arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller before the Supreme Court of the United States are scheduled for tomorrow morning. Audio of the arguments will be made available shortly afterward so we can hear what everyone said.

There's no telling exactly when the actual decision will be handed down.

I predicted the outcome of the Kelo decision months before it was handed down based on the two prior precedent-setting cases. Here, the most recent thing we've got is Miller.

I'm betting on a 5-4 decision, but which way? I honestly don't have a clue. It depends on whether there are five intellectually honest judges on that bench, or five willing to "create magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases - or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text," or to simply "(bury) language that is incontrovertibly there."

Because any decision that upholds the D.C. ban will have to be built on the white spaces between the lines of text, on top of a foundation of the words they will have to bury six feet under.

This decision may not tell us if we will be able to remain, as Rev. Donald Sensing put it sometime back, at least "minimally truly free," but it might very well tell us that such hope is well and truly gone.

Either way, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

The next überpost will be delayed until after the oral arguments and the resultant commentary.

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